New Project!

Okay...so I know I sort of left you all hanging with my "new project" announcement! I hope that I don't have you all worked up over nothing. To most of you this will be no big deal at all, but to those of you who know me and are somewhat aware of my struggles you will understand what a big deal this is.
It is no secret that I have struggled with losing weight forever!! I actually have never really been successful at it (sadly.) It is very frusterating for me and for those around me. I go through spurts where I am really dilligent about working out, spurts where I do really well with my diet but for some reason I obviously just can't figure out how to lose weight. Obviously (maybe sooner obvious to those around me than to myself) I need to do more. I need to eat better...always...I need to stick to a workout plan that 'works.' I AM trying! I feel like I am ALWAYS trying. When does it end? I have come to realize that apparently it NEVER ends. Once I figure all this out I will have to do it FOREVER! That is a hard realization to get to. Especially for someone who apparently loves food. Nonetheless, no matter how it appears to everyone else, I truely feel like I DO TRY and when nothing ever works I just want to give up. I am tired of being fat. I am tired of weighing myself every week after "Trying" and nothing much changing. Sure I might lose a couple of pounds here and there...but somehow I gain them back and we are back at square one!
Now that you know a little background...back to my New Project--square one if you will. I must preface this with....I am not a runner. Sure...I ran in high school...but I don't think that really counts now..10 years and lots of pounds later. I have been told on numerous occasions by different people, when talking about my struggle with weight...."I bet if you could just run a couple miles a day..you would lose weight." I would say back..."maybe..if I could actually run." I mean...I literally know 'how' to run...but actually running is a different story. I just say I can't do it...well...because I don't think I can. It is very intimidating to me....I am scared to just try it...for fear that I know I can't even jog for 5 minutes without feeling dead.
Back to my project....I was watching the news the other night about the marathon in San Antonio last weekend. I thought to myself..."you know...I wish I could be athletic like that and run maybe a half-marathon one day." So...i started to look up training schedules for beginners to train for a half-marathon. Remember...I can't even jog for 5 minutes...I am definately a beginner. Well the schedule I found started you out at running 2 miles comfortably. Well, Crap, I thought. I can't do that...there is no way. I had to back it up a little...well alot...if I am ever gonna do this. I look up training schedules for 5K runs...that is 3.1 miles. Now this sounds alot more reasonable. I found a few training schedules that interested me. The one I settled on is this 6 week training for beginners from Nike. http://www.nike.com/europerunning/flash/train/pdfs/beginners-5k.pdf
It starts you off with 20 minute workouts--walk 1 min, run 1 min...repeat for 20 min. Now this maybe...just maybe...I can tackle. In 6 weeks I should be able to run 5K. We will see. I started on Monday. The first workout I will say...was embarrasingly hard for me. Before I did it I was thinking to myself that surely I could do at least 30 minutes of alternating between walking a running...surely. I was so beat after 20 minutes. Okay...I tell myself...this is for beginners for a reason. I did the first workout on an old treadmill. Yesterday (Wednesday), I did workout #2. I walked/ran at the track here in Gonzales. I still only did 20 minutes...it seemed a bit easier than Monday...but I am sooooo sore today. I guess I am doing something right. I talked my sister into doing this with me. She lives in Houston and we talk to each other after our workouts. It is nice to have a partner...even if in another city. We plan on doing our weekend/Sunday runs together when she comes home. My sister, April, is getting married in July '09 and we both want to lose some weight. 6 weeks will put us through the week of Christmas. We will try to run our 3 miles/ 5K the Saturday or Sunday after Christmas. At this point we have no time we want to beat ...we just want to be able to finish without killing ourselves. I will keep you all posted on how it is going week by week and I welcome anyone else who wants to try this with us to do so.
After 6 weeks we will see where we are and take it from there...if we did ok..we might start training for a 10K after the first of the year...this is my hope anyway. I still want to do a half-marathon one day. I just have to get there by baby steps.
Hopefully, if I can complete the training..I will have lost some weight and hopefully if I can keep up with running I will continue to lose weight. I have never seen a fat runner! Wish us luck and join in if you like.