I started trying to run in 2018. I woke up, got dressed, downloaded the Nike run club app, and set out to run. I didn't google how to start or anything. It was September and I had been wanting to start all summer long, but I knew I'm sensitive to the heat of the Cypriot Desert Heat. The weather was perfect I thought for my first run, so off I went.
I walked for about a song and then started running as fast as I could. Now that I think about it, it went pretty well. I managed to get to about 700 meters before I had to stop and get back home. And I got back home and landed on my bed in one of my worst Asthma attacks ever. It was the time I had to stop avoiding it and finally booked an appointment with a pneumologist. I managed to meet the doctor around December, and I was officially diagnosed with asthma. For the next few months my doctor had me undergo different exams and see different other doctors, and about a year later of treatment I thought I was in the position to start running. I had bought a miband and was excited to get running. My nephews and niece visit every weekend, and we had a specific time of day to go to the park to play, so i decided to start running. I started with 15 minutes of running. My niece became my coach and she wouldn't leave me stop running until 15 minutes were up. This lasted a couple of weekends, but then things started getting in the way and the running stopped. I did this again a year later, in the summer of 2020. Again with the kids. This time the kids tried running with me.
In January I decided to take this more seriously. I found a serious motivation, I joined the conqueror challenges, I chose the prettiest medal of all, and started the challenge. The medal was in fact a really good motive for me, my sister says it's because I'm goal-oriented. And it did what it had to do. Keep me hooked for 60 days, until it became a habit.
The first month I started, started in January 2021, I had a lot of asthma attacks. I just didn't realize they were connected to my running. As I kept going my lungs got stronger and I stopped having asthma attacks. This process took about 3 weeks. I started with a couch to 5k program, and I managed to keep up for like a month, but then I stopped getting better. And I didn't really try much more. My sister also came home from where she lives and stayed with us for 3 weeks. I kept running, just not as organized as I did before. on her last week here I didn't run at all. When she left I went for a 2K run and my time was much better. Compared to my 2K run while she was here, my time was 4 minutes faster. Went from 21 minutes to 17. So I really like that progress. I also liked how easy and quick it was to run 2K. And decided to run 2K every day. Since it only takes 17 minutes, I made it home in time almost every day so that I can go for a run. The bad thing I did was that I didn't have time to stretch or warm-up. I did this for 2 months. I stopped having any kind of progress with my lungs and I started gaining weight. So I tried going back to 5k's. I was happy I managed to keep my new 2K pace for my experimental first 5K run. I run the same pace, but about 2 kilometers in I was dead. I couldn't keep going. I thought I went out too fast and should call my sister to come pick me up. But then I had this crazy thought... I thought, can I really physically die? I mean... will I even faint?? it seemed pretty improbable. So I kept running at the same pace and I really did not die. I did get home and as I knock on the door, there's a delay because nobody is near to get the door fast, and suddenly a chill passes through me and I start feeling dizzy. I sit on the porch step and I feel worse. My mom opens the door and I can't even get a glass of water. I have to lay down. I just had to lay down for a couple of minutes and everything got better. My mom was pretty worried... But nothing serious beyond that. Maybe things wouldn't get as bad if I used my inhaler, but I don't really know... maybe it would still get as bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment