A few weeks ago, I decided to get back to running. I had been running before we moved to Colorado. I was comfortably averaging 5-6 miles. Also, I was working out six days a week doing yoga, pilates, and boot camp. Then we moved. The holidays came. I didn’t want to pay for a gym membership. That was back in November. You can do the math. So I kinda stopped all activity –  except for walking the dog and skiing, of course. It was winter…and cold. I wrote about excuses in an earlier post.

I did try to make the occasional kick boxing or yoga class. Life happens. I totally get it. Spring came and I realized that I have five months to get in shape for my wedding. FIVE MONTHS. So I registered for the Froyo 5k with a friend.  I figured I could do it no problem. My body has always been able to just keep going without injury so I pushed it. Let’s be honest who doesn’t love running knowing there is froyo at the end of the race. I trained for about a week. I ran the 5k just fine. So I thought. When I got home my back was killing me. I couldn’t move much for three days. The pain was so intense that my face would just crunch up into a prune. So much for progress.

This photo was pre-run, pre-froyo, and pre-pain

I  did learn something. First off, I am no longer 20 years old. Running is something you have to ease into and work towards. The body is an amazing thing, but you have to give it time to adapt. This may seem like common sense, but sometimes we can get wrapped in a goal that we try to take a short cut to speed up the results. Don’t do it. I needed a massage, acupuncture, and another massage to get back to semi-normal. I know the massages sound great, but they were not enjoyable for the most part.

I’m happy to report that I made a full recovery. I started out walking again. Slowly increasing my mileage this time. Then I went on a couple of two-three mile hikes. When that went well, I upped it even more.  In fact, the whole family recently went for an 8 mile hike with no problems.

The whole family also did a rock scramble!

I also started using Freeletics. It’s an app that has a warm-up, body weight circuit training (squats, sit-ups, push-ups, burpees, etc.), and stretching.  So far I like that it takes about twenty  to thirty minutes. I’ll post more about it when I see the results, but I think this combined with the hiking this summer will help get into shape for the wedding. I’m going to remove running from my routine for a while. I do want to run a half-marathon eventually, but I’m going to actually do some more strength training first.  Also, the weather has been amazing so it is time to get outside, and have some more adventures.