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There are some people who love running for exercise. That feeling, however brief, of flying across the pavement, the wind blowing through your hair can be addictive. And there are some people who would rather feel hot inch-long needles jammed into the soles of their feet rather than run.
For a large portion of my life, I was squarely in the latter camp.
After I got my type 2 diabetes health scare in my early 40s (pre-diabetic, with the need to begin the Metformin medication), I decided, well, I’ve been walking all my life, maybe I should try something a bit more energetic.
At first, I just laced up my old sneakers and walked out my front door. I had no plan, no agenda. I just started to jog. I live in a very hilly neighborhood, so I decided, let me just start by running downhill. My legs felt leaden, and after a few short minutes, I realized that I was winded and had started off much too quickly. I slowed down a bit and proceeded to motor down a very long hill.
That is, the hill only felt long to me. In reality, when I made it to the bottom of the hill not even ten minutes had passed. And by the time I was at the bottom, I turned around and nearly passed out. There was no way that I was going to make it back to the very top. I stopped jogging and decided to walk the rest of the way home.
The next day, I decided that I could run to the bottom of the hill. I know that I can do that without killing myself, and then I would just jog thirty more seconds on the way back up. Surely, I could handle an extra thirty seconds.
And I could! And I kept that up for the next week. And after the end of that week, I added thirty seconds more. And just thirty more a week after that. Over time, I felt more comfortable jogging; I no longer felt like someone would pass me by and hear my panicked wheezing and call 911 because they thought I was having a heart attack. Eventually, I was even jogging for an entire thirty minutes up and down hills.
It was glorious. I felt glorious.
And then, as will always happen as we age, I started getting small injuries (a stubbed toe, back pain) and life became exponentially busier. I dropped my running from five times a week to maybe twice a week, and sometimes weeks went by where I did not run at all.
And then the pandemic hit.
High on my survival list was just getting through the new normal and making sure that my family was safe. And even as we slowly began to emerge from Covid crisis, I was laid off, a blow to my psyche that had me wanting to cocoon and soothe myself by playing endless video games.
But, as the pounds crept back up, I decided that I needed to start up my jogging again. I felt so demoralized, and I lacked any motivation. How could I possibly start up again? I was so old. Always a big believer in the power of apps to keep you motivated, especially if they are free, I decided to try the Nike Run Club App.
The price was right (free), and the app had a convenient “Beginner” program. Four weeks. That’s all it would take. Four weeks to get my jogging life back on track.
I was hesitant at first, but the coach was energetic (though not overly so) and gave me the best piece of advice on this journey of mine to get back on the jogging track: start slow. You read that right. Slow. Yes, you’re running, and yes, going slow might feel like you’re just walking fast, but the movements are different when you jog. Even though I was going so very slowly, I could feel the pleasant ache of exercise exertion in my thigh muscles the next day.
And starting slow was something I could do. It wasn’t intimidating. Could I laugh and hold a conversation while I was jogging? If so, then I was going at the right pace. I loved this seemingly insignificant piece of advice. It was small, but it shifted my entire mindset about running. If I started out slowly, then I would have gas in the tank for later shifts to higher gear as I got further along in my run. And, starting off slowly allowed me to be less intimidated about starting the run in the first place.
The app moved through a variety of daily runs (short five-minute runs, twenty-minute runs, building up to forty-minute runs, something I never, ever thought I could do). These runs were mixed with speed interval runs where I would run faster for a minute and then slowly for a minute. The variety and the gentle nature of the coaching helped me to establish a jogging routine that I now feel great about completing each week.
There are no ads in the guided runs, although the virtual coach does push you to share your jogs with the world, a way of advertising itself to your social media followers. I do also get the urge every now and then to browse through the Nike site for new shoes.
But the app has done what I thought was impossible; get me out of my pandemic/layoff-induced funk, and I’m beyond grateful that I stumbled across it. Are there any apps that you love to run with? Share them in the comments below!
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