Run, Lizzy, Run!

I am STILL flying high from my run last night.

I had the third workout of Week 4 of Zombies, Run! 5K on tap. I decided to push myself harder than I ever have.

After warming up by walking for 5 minutes, it took me into a 5-minute "freeform run", which means you can walk or run, just do whatever your body is comfortable with. The entire program is like this; except for specific drills where you are required to run, the freeform runs are up to you to take at your pace. And my pace is SLOW.

Anyway, it started and I was like "welp, here we go." And started jogging. I tried really hard to listen to my breathing, focus on how my legs were feeling, etc. A few times I had to slow down a bit, but I wanted to keep jogging. Next thing I knew, they told me I was done 2 minutes. I felt good, so I decided to go for the entire 5 minutes. Why not? I'd never jogged that long before, but hey, you won't know until you try, right?

WELL I DID IT.

And the look on my face was like this:

So I did my drills that they make you do, and went through this scary-ass tunnel...

it gets REALLY dark in there....

turned around, went back through it, walked for a bit, and at that point, I heard the app announce that I was 4 minutes into the last 15-minute freeform run. I decided to try to run until they said 9 or 10 minutes. So I did. And when they did, I felt great, so I decided to keep going.

And then I finished the mission, walked a little bit more, and decided, heck, why not run some more? So I ran for another 10 minutes or so.

And I felt AMAZING. No sweaty selfies here, no "marathon legs", no "Guys, I did four-point-oh-oh-oh-oh miles." Just absolute wonder that I can go from being completely sedentary 8-ish months ago to jogging 4 miles, and not feel like I'm going to die afterward. I feel like I can do ANYTHING now, because I never thought this would be something I could do.

Am I a "runner" now? Far from it. But whenever I see a fellow chubby girl on the trail with her headphones in, working up a sweat, I want to give her a giant high five and tell her that she kicks ass. 

Because I am also that ass-kicking chubby girl, and I am kicking the butt of everyone sitting at home on the couch.