HA! Here's a fun little quick and dirty (see what I did there?) blog post to hold you over until I can get to the good stuff.
Scott and I have done the couch to 5k program off and over over a period of a couple years. First the weather in Oregon put a damper on it, and then we moved, and then we started over with my parents. Then wedding stuff got crazy and we fell off that train again- but not the whole health train! We continued to work out at home and at the gym a few times a week. But the running thing? Not so much. However- we had already signed up to do the Color Run in DC. I thought it was a good choice for your first 5k- it's not timed, so it isn't super competitive. People run or walk it, so if we got tired we wouldn't look like losers walking. And most of all- FUN!
I have to say I was pretty proud of myself. It was my very fist 5k and I did manage to jog my booty through most of it- we walked the giant hills and a few times when I got color powder in my throat and started wheezing. But overall I was happy I did it, and proud of my time (even though they didn't time it- we did, using the RunKeeper app on our phones).
My favorite thing about the run is that it gave me something to look forward too. I'm big on motivation- as in, I don't have any within my inner fitness goddess or whatever, and I need it to come from outside. The Color Run (and other runs like it) break the whole thing down into bits. In this case, there were 4 color stations. SO you start running, run through the mud/up some hills and right when you're like "I'm pretty sure I didn't sign up for a mud run/warrior dash when is the color going to happen oh God," you can see Pink up ahead. And there's music blasting and people are screaming for you, and people are laughing, and there's cute little signs, so you think, "Hey, that's not so far away. I can make it to Pink!" So you find your ~motivation~ and you run your butt to/through Pink. And when you finish with that, you feel rejuvenated- and up int he distance, you can see puffs of Yellow powder floating into the sky. So you say, "that's not TOO far away. I can totally run to Yellow." And so on and so forth until you finish running through Blue and can see the finish line. And if there's one thing that DOES motivate my inner fitness goddess, it's finishing strong.
And then of course, there's a huge party at the end and everyone is happy and colored in pretty colors and it's a wonderful experience. If all of my runs were broken down into little pieces and had big parties periodically throughout, I would be a much better runner. Who wants to come line the streets by my house with some boomboxes and cheer for me?
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