Ah! It's been a week!

Sooo, I'm lame and haven't been updating like I should.. so here's the run-down..get it? Run?! hhahahhaha


I suck at running.. still. This is not going to change much for awhile. I switched shoes, tried decreasing the time I run, etc.. nothing seems to help. I walked some more last week (two miles outside and then one session inside) and it's going well. I'm walking at a 3.5 speed, for 1.5-2.0 miles 3 times a week...except I havent since Saturday. I had a bad cold and fever on Thursday, which made me miss zumba (I couldn't breathe let alone do aerobic dance) and took Friday off. I should have walked today, but our house guests are keeping me awake at night (or whenever I try to sleep) and I'm not thrilled about it...but that's another story.

This post's story comes from my dad. I was talking to him about training to run this 5K and he told me flat out-- "You're not a runner. No one in our family is!" and I was all "Pssffhhh whatev, Dad... I'm gonna show you!" and then BAM! Shin splints.. So I followed up on his "No runners in our family" claim. Turns out, not a single person in my family has ever excelled at running (Zac did one season of CC in middle school). Now, I'm not saying that most families are avid runners who spend their weeks training for marathons and all ran every event in high school track..I'm saying that no one in my family has ever been ABLE to run. Be it for medical reasons, or they just find it boring..no one does it.

Then I started to think about when I was little and I tried running, but always complained that it hurt. I can remember being in elementary school and when we had to run, I always had to stop and "tie my shoes" because my legs started to burn. I just thought it was because I never ran, like all of my friends and didn't think twice. Now, I wasn't a couch potato either,  I was always at the beach or in my dad's pool swimming. Zac and I would BEG our mom to take us to the beach and we'd spend the entire day there. I was the first of all my friends to pass the swimming test, and even choreographed a swim dance to a BSB song when I was in middle school. Heck, I even broke my ankle in a hot tub (okay, so I jumped in it on a dare and busted it on the cement step..did I mention this happened at a Hotel?hah)

Our family are swimmers, so says my dad. We all have this canny need to be in the water at a really young age and  LOVE it. Ask anyone in my family, my nick-name when I was little was Shamu (I hope because I loved taking baths and swimming, not because i was a chunker..haha). So, I never ran....I always swam.

Now don't confuse this story for an excuse--it's not that. I'm just slowly realizing WHY running seems to be so hard for me, when Zumba, which I burn way more calories at per hour, is extremely easy for me to do. It's simply because I have zero experience with running. I don't know how to breathe, how to make my stride work well for me, or even how my feet are supposed to hit the ground!
Just as an example about how truly clueless I am when it comes to running, while Brandon was watching me run, he said "What are you doing with your feet?!" and I looked down.. I run with my feet turned out--like I'm in dance class or color guard. This is also how I walk (which my mom has commented on before). My feet naturally go to turned out position if I'm walking, running, or just standing somewhere. Apparently, this is something I shouldn't be doing while running, Who knew?!

With all this in mind, I'm going to hit the books (errr, internet..) and do some research about how I should and shouldn't run.

This is just a speed bump--I will be a runner (at least by my definition) by Thanksgiving.


p.s.--Brandon is doing really really well..I'll try to get him to update!