How I Got Started Running

I clearly remember the day I decided to lose weight. I was sitting in the parking lot at work watching lightning dance outside me car window. I had just returned from a trip to Wendy’s where I had devoured a big bacon classic value meal, supersized with a coke and a frosty. I was sitting in my car because I had just been dumped by my then boyfriend and didn’t want to go back into the station with red puffy eyes.

As the time passed, I resolved that it was time to move on – from the boyfriend, from the emotional roller coasters, and from the emotional eating. I have been an emotional eater for as long as I can remember. If I was in a bad mood, I ate chocolate. Needed comforting, fried chicken did the trick.

At the time, I weighed 146 pounds, which is the heaviest I have ever been. I would like to say that I began running the next day, but I didn’t. For starters, I didn’t know where to begin. What workouts did I need to do? What do I eat? So, I collected information and started working out the first of January.

The first month sucked. There is no other way to put it. My body hurt from the workouts, my endurance was horrible, I craved junk food, and I didn’t lose much weight. However, I pushed through and by March, I could really see results. During this time, I was running on the treadmill or elliptical and lifting. When the weather warmed up, I started running outside, usually running two miles. I gradually picked up the pace on those runs and also started running hills. Fast forward to August of that year, and by then I was completely addicted to running.

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