About a month ago, I wrote about how I was feeling apathetic and sad… basically I was depressed. There, I said the d word.

One of my resolutions to combat this bout of apathy was to start exercising, in particular running more. I made a goal of running 5k nonstop and even downloaded a couch to 5k app.

At first I was cynical. Coming from a girl who exercised once a month… and only when dragged to the gym by her friend, I didn’t know if I could do the 3 runs/week that the app suggested.

And…. I was right in being cynical. I never did run 3 times/week even after downloading the app. But that’s completely okay!

I knew from the start that I’d wear myself out and as someone who admittedly gives up quite easily on almost every hobby I start, I knew I had to make this sustainable.

It wasn’t a sprint. It was a marathon.

So I made a goal to run at least twice a week so if I fall short of that goal, I’d still run once a week.

And wow, what a change running for one month made. I guess that’s the power of habit.

This past week I had to work a 6 day week with only one day off. And guess what I did first thing that morning on my day off? Yes, I ran.

1-month-ago me would’ve laid in bed for a couple more hours browsing the internet on my phone.

This new me got up, ate a light breakfast, and made her way to the gym to run for 2 miles!

And that’s a huge accomplishment coming from the girl who used to go to the gym only for 15 mins or long enough for her to get to 1 mile on the treadmill. 

I didn’t even dare dream of running more than 1 mile before. In fact, there were times I’d already get lightheaded running 1 mile when I haven’t gone to the gym in months. And I’d almost always knock out after my gym sessions from all the tiredness.

Now I feel more energetic. Can you believe it? I’ve heard and read many testimonials of people saying regular exercise will actually energize your daily life. To be honest, I thought all those testimonials were 100% bogus. I used to think people who said that were crazy or lying to themselves in order to keep themselves motivated.

But I definitely find that I feel less tired in my day to day job and on weekends I have more energy to go out with friends when one-month-ago me would’ve crashed right after work and chosen to stay home to recover on the weekends.

To add to this craziness, I even said yes to running a 5 mile run around a popular running trail when my friend invited me! While my time may be laughable to a lot of people, I was just proud that I could even finish! 

My Progress

As you may well be able to tell from this blog, I like keeping record of my progress. So where am I now in my running progress? 

I last succeeded in running 10 mins non stop on a 5mile/hour pace. I then walked for 3 minutes then did another 10 min non stop run on the treadmill per couch to 5k’s Week 6 instructions.

Now you may ask… why am I already in week 6 when it’s only been 4 weeks since I started this app? Well, to be honest, I’m not quite following this app religiously because:

This crazy app went from asking me to run 8 minutes nonstop to running 20 minutes nonstop?? Is there no in-between??

I knew I was setting myself up to fail if I did that so now I’m working on my own to slowly start building myself up to a 20 minute non-stop run.

Like I said, nothing much to be impressed about, but the app did say to focus on time, not on speed so I’m 100% going slow but steady.

Next week I plan to up my game slowly to hopefully get to 15 min non-stop run.

As for my 5k time? Surprisingly… I haven’t even attempted a 5k. The most I’ve done on the treadmill was 2 miles from doing the app and the time I did the 5-mile run with my friend (which is actually a longer distance than my 5k goal), I did it in a slow time of 67 minutes which means I was averaging a 13.4 mile pace.

So yes, I’m slow. But I’m still proud of myself and the progress I’ve made both physically and mentally.