A few months ago I mentioned a sort of journey that my BFF Julie and I embarked on. Quick recap: since we were going to walk a 3K for The Run For Hungry Children several months later, Julie suggested that we try to run the 5K race, too. As in running 5K in addition to the family 3K walk.
5K (3.1 miles)+ 3K (1.86 miles) = 1 SB (sweaty blogger)
This is how I felt about the prospect of running anywhere. (Click cartoon for copyright info.)
Oh! Did I mention that part where neither one of us has ever run on purpose before? Because that’s a factor. Not to say that I don’t ever run on purpose. If I were being chased by a hungry bear, then sure, I’d run. Unless of course my boys were with me, in which case I’d throw myself over their bodies and hope the bear filled up on me before getting to them. But clearly, I digress.
So way back in July, we embarked on an odyssey running program that promised to get us running a 5K in 9 short weeks, with just 3 runs each week. We started running 60 seconds at a time, alternating with 90 seconds of walking, for a total of 15 minutes. The intervals increase a tiny bit each week until you are able to run for a solid 30 minutes during week 9.
This is week 9.
Our journey brought us to week 9!! The race is this Saturday morning!
We started running a solid 30 minutes last week, a week early, just to see if we could. We accidently ran 33 minutes the first run, and 36 minutes the next. A victory, for sure! We are hoping our sluggish pace at 30+ minutes will equate to a 5K, because we have been running for time, not distance. We have not only started to like our runs, but crave them on our “off” days. How the heck did that happen?
This is how I feel about running a 5K now. (Click for copyright info.)
I’m not going to lie and tell you that it was easy. I’m not going to tell you that I loved every minute of these 9 weeks. Fact: Forty year old women that take up running will be sore somewhere on their bodies after each attempt. Some days I feel great. Others I hate every step.
Quite honestly, I have often had moments which vacillate between knowing that death is coming for me, and praying that it does so that I can be put out of my misery. I rejoice after each run because I survived. If you think I’m being dramatic, then you haven’t run in the 90°F heat and humidity of summer.
Running in the heat reminds me of the sweet Haitian children that we are running for…some of whom whose only meal of the day comes from the feeding program at their school, which is paid in part by The Run for Hungry Children.
The creaky joints, sore muscles, and the war I wage in my head each time I run is meaningless in the grand scheme of life. The motivation behind The Run for Hungry Children is so not about me.
((Insert abrupt transition to more frivolous things here))
Let’s talk about Hubby’s (?) new blog name! Since my husband is a multi-faceted guy, he thought that referring to him as “Hubby” here on the blog was a little ordinary. We have this thing in our house where everyone in the family has a minimum of 22 or so nicknames. Many of them end with -anator or -meister or -arino. True story. So out of the nearly 2 dozen things that I call my husband at any given time, none of them is “Hubby.” Or the Hubanator or the Hubmeister or Hubarino.
You guys really came through with great ideas for a replacement-blog-name for my hot-hunk-o-man. The big favorites were:
Funk Master Squeeze – Leave it to Deb to come up with the-man-I-pledged-to-share-my-life-with’s-favorite. I think he’s just wants an excuse to break dance.
Baby Daddy or The Virile Baby Daddy – Truth in advertising either way. The apple-of-my-eye is indeed the father of our four boys.
The Bacon Slayer – Hub my-live-in-homeboy likes this one because it infers that not only does he bring home the bacon, he has to rough it up a bit until it perishes. I think it makes him feel all hunter-gatherer.
The Baconator – a take-off on the above bacon reference. I like it because not only does it cover my-main-squeeze’s ability to provide for the family, but it also encompasses his love of all things bacon. Win-win. However, I can’t say/hear/see any word that ends in -ator without hearing Heinz Doofenshmirtz say it.
Honorable Mentions go to The Dude, and Mr. Man.
I briefly considered inventing a symbol to represent the man-formerly-known-as-Hubby, but then I’d have to figure out how to insert it in every post, which would require far too much effort on my part.
So henceforth and heretofore, my husband-soulmate-best-friend will be referred to as:
Bacon Slayer
Because I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to make my husband feel like a rough-and-tough-hunter-gatherer. That and it has the name Bacon in the title, and I can’t resist bacon.
All things Superman are copyright, trademark, and property of DC Comics
Of course the possibilities for my own amusement are endless.
limptriumph over the finish line. Hmmm...arms of bacon...that's a thought.