So I joined a running club.

Clearly I'm not a runner. However, since I'd like to be a triathlete someday, I need to be sort of a runner. That's why I joined a running club. It's run by Tri La Vie and Coach Martha, the same Coach Martha who runs the swimming program I joined where I routinely feel like I'm trying so hard I might drown.

Anyway, the running club has about 100 people in it of all abilities. There are separate groups based on distance: full/half marathon and 10k/5k. We meet up on Saturday mornings where we head out on a run and all meet back at a specified time where we have a guest speaker and a catered breakfast. Don't tell anyone, but it's really pretty fun.

I started doing the couch-to-5k program earlier this year on a treadmill in the gym. Let's just say that running on a treadmill is nowhere near what it's like running for real. The first group run was at Aliso Wood Canyon, where I like to ride my mountain bike. We started in the parking lot outside of the park and followed a service road to the park entrance where the actual trails start.

Good news: It's mostly all downhill going in.

Bad news: It's mostly all uphill coming out.

That first run I didn't even make it to the park entrance. We were supposed to run/walk for 15 minutes and then turn around and come back. On the way back out, my legs were really getting tired and I had only gone about 1.75 miles round trip. Great.

Yesterday was our second run, this time being held at Peter's Canyon. This was a similar situation where you run on a trail or path until you get to the actual park entrance. One of the ladies in charge told us that if we made it to the outhouses at the entrance, then we went 1.5 miles, or 3 miles round trip.

So I take off with the group. The group quickly thins out with everyone running at a different pace. It was getting warm. It was dry. In fact, my sinuses were rebelling at just how dry the air was that day. All I could pay attention to was the incessant burning in my nostrils and the dryness in the back of my throat. The only thing that sounded like a good idea was to squirt my water bottle up my nose and, given the chance with a little privacy, I may have done just that.

I kept going and tried to focus on catching up to people walking up ahead. Once I would pass someone, I'd focus on the next. Eventually I made it to the outhouses. I checked my watch and I had only been going for 13 minutes. On one hand, I was like "It's only been 13 minutes!?!?" On the other, I was like "It's only been 13 minutes!!!!" Like the lady said, the outhouses were at the 1.5 mile mark. WOOO HOOO! That's my fastest time yet! In fact, that's so fast that it can't possibly be true! I was really happy and since I still had 2 more minutes before turnaround time, I kept going.

Then I saw a Tri La Vie mile marker.

And it said 1 mile.

Talk about a let down. I knew I couldn't have been that fast.

On the way back, however, things went a little better. My sinuses (like everywhere else on my body) must have been sweating because the burning in my nose had gone from inferno to mildly annoying. It was also sort of downhill.

This was a view of the way back:

About 3/4 of the way back to the starting point, I was having to walk a lot. I was tired. Just then, a girl who is much more overweight than I am jogged passed me. I knew she was part of our club because of the identifying green bracelet. For a split second I was dumbfounded. How was this large woman continue propelling herself forward at such a pace? It was super-inspiring to me and I thought "If she can do it, I can too!" and with that, I jogged the rest of the way to the group.

Just as we were nearing the group site, the ladies in charge were motioning for us to take a shortcut through the wooden fence in order to save time instead of going all the way down to the end of the trail around the fence and coming back.

I felt a wave of panic. Looking at the fence, it was large and wooden. It was too tall for me to climb over gracefully and there was too much dense brush at the bottom for me to crawl under. The only way was to go through the middle. It's sometimes hard to judge your body size relative to objects around you. My initial thought of panic was that I might not fit in that space to get through the fence. I thought about my options.

1. Try to get through the fence and risk getting stuck.

2. Ignore everyone and go all the way down and around the end of the fence.

3. Try to propel myself up and over the fence like a hurdle.

4. Pretend to tie my shoe while waiting for others to go through the fence first and refine my options based on whether they were successful.

I opted for number 4. My biggest fear was obviously this:

However, my personal view of my body image clearly has not changed because once everyone cleared out, I made it through the fence with no issue at all! In fact, I could go through that fence all day and not get stuck. I could probably eat a quart of ice cream and still make it through that fence. I'm not going to try that though.

Sometimes it's better to just live in denial.

Whenever I decide to go for a run (or walk with small bursts of jogging -- let's call it what it really is), I always have this vision in my mind of me as this super-fit athlete prancing through the air with the grace of a gazelle. I mean seriously, no one envisions themselves as slow and as lumbering as they really are.

I had high hopes that my new shoes would suddenly make running a wonderful orgasmic experience that real runners declare that it is. I've come to the conclusion, however, that it's all a bunch of hooey that runners have made up to make it seem like they are doing something really cool. Yesterday I decided to try out my new shoes on the treadmill at the gym. I really did feel like I was bounding through the air at lightning-fast speed. That is, until I caught my reflection in the mirror. Yeah, not so much.

In my mind I feel like I'm much more in shape and look way better than I really do. I guess that's similar to what people with anorexia struggle with. They envision themselves overweight (therefore refuse to eat), when the rest of the world sees them as skinny or normal in body weight. The tricks the mind plays are so cruel.

There are exactly three reasons why I might want to run:

1. The building is on fire.
2. I really have to go pee.
3. I've found myself lost in the woods and a large bear has zeroed in on me as the weakest link.

For all other situations, walking pretty much works just fine and you don't get as sweaty.

With all kidding aside, running is very hard on your joints, especially when you are overweight like I am. It's really a catch 22 because you want to be thinner to run, but it helps to run to get thinner. I know I'm discouraged, but some days it's just really hard to get motivated when you know a) you are going to be in real pain while exercising and b) you will likely be in twice as much pain when you wake up the next day. That's where I found myself today. Yesterday after doing W3D3 (again) of the C25K program in my new shoes, I felt more leg pain than I have before. This morning I could hardly get out of bed. My back felt all tensed up and sore, my knees hurt, and even my thighs were aching. I've done twice as long a workout and not felt that bad. But, tomorrow is a new day and I'll just keep believing that it will get easier with time. It has to. Or else I might die.

These weren't made for jogging. And by these I mean boobs.

For those inquiring minds that want to know, I thought I'd give a quick update on my triathlon training. I've been alternating between the events throughout the week, some more than others. First, I start by watching TV on my left side. Then, about a third of the way through, I do a transition and start watching on my right side. Finally, I finish up with lying on my stomach, even though that's the hardest one for me due to neck cramps. Oh. Wait. What were we talking about again?

Right, so the rest of the time not spent being lazy I spend trying to refine my level of fitness. I'm happy to say that I'm at around 25-26 lbs. down (seems to vary from day to day) and more than 20 inches smaller than before! I've gone from a size __ pants to a size __! Isn't that fantastic? I thought so. Most people may not notice because I haven't bought new clothes. They've just gotten baggier. Well, now that's a lie. I did buy one pair of smaller pants out of necessity, but I really don't want to spend a bunch of money on new stuff yet.

Tonight was supposed to be a swimming night, but when I found out the pool was closed for maintenance, it became a running night. Running is my weakest sport, largely because it's not super fun to have boobs for this sport. Sometimes they can look like this:

Tonight I did 3.1 miles in 49:08 min! That's more than 4 minutes off my last time! I basically did week 3 day 3 of the Couch to 5K program for the first 30 minutes, which is a 5 min warm up, followed by intervals of running 90 sec/walking 90 sec then running 3 min/walking 3 min. For the rest of the time I walked for 90 sec and ran for 1 minute. It felt pretty good. I started getting a weird ache or cramp in my thigh, so slowed down because I didn't want to make that any worse. At this rate, I may not be the last to finish the race!