Saturday, May 4, 2013

In Cincinnati, "When Pigs Fly" Isn't Just a Saying

Today is the second day of Cincinnati's marathon - the Flying Pig - festivities.  (I've heard it's supposed to be one of the most difficult in the country, b/c the area is so hilly.)  The full and half Pigs are tomorrow, and the 5 and 10Ks are today.  Years ago, when I was Little Miss Healthy going to the gym for two hours or walking a few miles in the park every day, I had decided that I wanted to do a marathon.  In hindsight, that was probably a rather lofty goal.  My joints are not the best, even without all this extra weight I'm lugging around, and I've never really been a huge fan of running.  I like walking.  Perhaps with some momentary bouts of jogging thrown in.  But running?


Who knows, maybe I'll change my mind again once I've gotten my svelte and skinnyish build back.  (Try not to laugh too hard here.)  We'll see.  But in honor of the Pig festivities, I've decided on a goal: I shall join them next year.  I seriously doubt I'll do the full marathon - although Sedentary to Marathon in One Year makes a nifty blog title, no? - and I'm not even sure I could pull off the half.  Knowing what I was like even at my most fit (which really wasn't all that great in the grand scheme of things, if I'm being honest) and how much running hurt, I'm not sure if I could ever really become a runner.  But walking the 5 or 10K wouldn't be unreasonable.  And if I jog a bit now and then, so much the better.

I've heard of the Couch-to-5K Running Plan before, and I even vaguely remember looking it up back in the day, not that I apparently did much with it.  In light of my newfound porcine goal, I decided to look it up again.  And discovered a major flaw: this plan is supposedly for beginners, but it assumes that one can jog right off the bat.  For more than, you know, three steps.  They did not build this plan around people carrying a whole extra person's worth of blubber on their bodies...

So, continued walking will just have to do for now.  Hopefully at more regular intervals than I've thus far managed to do.  Yesterday, I "speed" (for me) walked to a store in an outlet mall to get there before closing, does that count?  Sadly, I left my activity monitor (a post to come on that later) attached to my work pants, which were hanging out on my bed, so all that walking about and getting turned around and walking some more went untracked.  All those steps, lost to the ether.  Alas.

Anyhow, since today is also a geek holiday (too bad I hadn't had my Pig inspiration last year), I shall leave you with this:


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