Guest Post: Sweaty Girl in a Fur-Covered World

How I found my running legs…

 

Once upon a time there was a girl who was always slightly chubbier than the rest of the girls her age. She was teased. As she got older, she yoyo’ed from being chunky to almost being average. When she was a junior in college she finally achieved a weight and a body she thought would keep her happy but life and bad relationships led her to eat her emotions and soon she had a body she once again resented.  And then the girl found out she had cancer… she was pumped full of medications including steroids which caused her to gain even more weight. She eventually beat her cancer but she was left with a much different body and the scale tipped at just under 200 pounds… 196 pounds to be exact. The girl was miserable but also more determined than ever to change her life and her body once again!

I’m that girl… My name is Ashley and I blog over at Sweaty Girl in a Fur-Covered Girl [http://sweatygirlfurcoveredworld.blogspot.com/]. 

On April 15, 2013, I started a program called C25K (Couch to 5K). It is a program that is designed to take someone who isn’t active at all (i.e. a couch potato) and have them capable of running a 5K (3.1 miles) in a 9 week program. There were a variety of different factors that led me to this program but it was mostly convenience – all it required was the app and a good pair of running shoes.

If you’re curious about the app I use, its RunDouble [http://www.rundouble.com/] on my Samsung SIII. When I started, I had the worst time ever… my feet hurt, my knees hurt, my legs hurt, and I couldn’t breathe when I finished a run. It took ever bit of willpower I had to not give up. I hate ever single minute of each run and I wanted to kill over after each one was finished.

But, then around week 5, something happened… I began to enjoy the running. My pains had faded away. I could breathe. And I finally started feeling a “runner’s high” after finishing my runs.

And then, around week 7, I stopped taking my rest days and running every day… sometimes twice a day.

I had at last… found my running legs.

I do have a few tips to offer those who might want to dabble in running but please keep in mind that I’m not an expert:

-        Invest in good running shoes

-        Use an heart rate monitor. (I recommend the Polar FT4 [http://www.polar.com/en/products/get_active/fitness_crosstraining/FT4]

-        Make the program your own (i.e. repeat runs or skip runs as needed)

-        Consider other forms of exercise like spinning for strengthen your legs and the rest of your body

-        Follow a good diet (lots of lean proteins and veggies)

If you’re interested in learning more about my fitness journey, please feel free to check out my blog or find me on any of my other forms of social media. I’m particularly active on Instagram [http://instagram.com/anratliff] and Twitter [https://twitter.com/anratliff].