What Have I Just Done?

Back in the dark ages when I was in grammar school, we had PE (or "Gym" as it we called it them) somewhere around once a week. I seem to recall it going in fits and starts, and we had a rotating cast of teachers, much like the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts. No single teacher seemed to last more than a year, or at least that's how I remember it.

We had one instructor who had each grade perform a choreographed routine in front of the whole school. Another who had us play basketball during our appointed time, and yet another who had us do some stupid chicken dance like routine set to a song called "Chicken Fat" (which has forever been imprinted on my brain, and the reason why I only buy skinless chicken).

I, like many, despised Gym, coming up with excuses that would make Tommy Flanagan (SNL) proud. I'd "forget" my gym clothes, have my period (once I was of age of course, and fortunately they never cottoned on to the fact that I either had the world's longest menstrual period, or got it every 7 days), schedule an orthodontist appointment (parental cooperation was needed), be called for Jury Duty, get caught in a natural disaster. You get the point.

One task that I specifically recall was the 12 minute mile (bear with me, it may have been 10, but for some reason 12 is the number sticking with me). I hated this one. On the one hand, we had to run, unsupervised, around the block that our school/church was situated on (ahhh, the 80s) and as long as you took off at a fairly decent trot in front of the Gym teacher, you could slack off and practically crawl the rest of the way. However, at some point down the line, a stop watch came into play. It was decreed that all of us had to be able to run a mile in the determined time, 12 minutes.

This was torture on so many levels.

First of all, I hated running. I'm still not entirely fond of it, but I do it fairly regularly now and voluntarily run specific distances (more on that later). But then? Ugh. Admittedly, I have asthma which was undiagnosed at this point. Plus, until I was 17, I was fairly well developed, and didn't discover sports bras until I was in my teens. I also was a sprinter. I'd take off and run hell bent for leather until I either puked or got a stitch in my side.

I know there were kids in my class that were more out of shape than I was, and I was barely able to make it in the perscribed time. I'm not sure what the penalty was if you couldn't finish the mile under the time limit. To my knowledge, nobody dropped dead, so they lucked out there.

What's my point in this? The point is that I've just committed to my friends, Weight Watchers and Facebook that I, Beth Adams, am going to run a Half Marathon in November. Of this year.

Stop laughing.

I've been running off at the mouth (pardon the pun) for about two months about wanting to do a half. I'm not sure why I have this fixated in my head. As you may recall, one of my New Years Resolutions was to run a longer race than my normal 5k. A 10k would make more sense. But no, idiot girl goes ahead and says I'm going to run 13.1 miles in roughly 11 months. I'm not all that fond of driving 13 consecutive miles, so I'm pretty sure running it is going to be an effort.

On one hand, I have 11 months to train. On the other, I have 11 months to procrastinate. I'm fairly certain I'm going to wake up on one cold, fall morning and realize that the race is weeks, if not days, away.

So, I need a plan and since I rarely actually do something unless I've put it on paper or out in cyberspace, I'm sharing it with you.

My goal is to increase the distance I run, which I try to do 3 times a week (or more). I'm currently clocking 3 and change (small change), so my goal is to increase that to 4 by February. Then there are training plans I can follow once I get my distance up.

Stay tuned (and seriously, stop laughing).