30

At 1996 when I finished my school I stopped all physical activities. I started to work in the office. After work I used to spend long hours at the PC at home. This winter a couple of nasty sickness attacked me. One after another.

I picked running as a way to deal with them. I was trying to run couple of times earlier. Had a different private plans but none of them worked (like the one to run each day to work). This time I decided to change the approach. I start to read. Books, magazines, forums... anything that brings informations. I bought a pulsometer. And a shoes. And installed runkeeper on my android phone. And asked hundreds of questions to a friend that is running for years and gets closer to the 3h time in marathon.

Armed with all of those, I started to run. I have never understand people posting info on forums that they can run for 400 meters only. I almost couldn't run for 100m so they were 4 times better than me and they complaining!

I didn't use any plans, like the Puma ones. I was following my heart: run at the 60-75% of HRmax.

The first runs where stressing heart. I was reaching 75% HRmax (heart maximum bitrate) after couple of steps. It passed after week - my heart get used to the exercise and... my legs started to generate the pain. As a result I had about 10-15 breaks for marching. It was calf all the time. I was following the advices: when something is in pain, do an extra break to avoid injury.

Yesterday I've send a tart letter to the friend that was giving me advices. It passed a month of running and I'm still at the beginning. During 30 minutes "run" I still need 10-15 breaks. I have seen no progress and didn't see a sense in all this running. (Maciej, BTW: I didn't get the response yet :) )

But I decided I won't stop. I'm in love in the runners proverb: "Make friends with pain and you will never be alone". (found in "Born to run" book).

I wear the running gear, did a warm-up and start to run. Till now 6 minutes of continuous running was my highest achievement. After 5 minutes my calf started to sing his song. "Relax legs, don't stretch them" I was repeating myself. "You can do it without stopping". And I did.

I was approaching 1km distance: never get that far with continuous running. Wow, another private achievement! Now, there is a church at about 1,4km will I be able to get that far? "Time passed: 14 minutes 59 seconds" - it was lady voice from runkeeper application. "So I'm running for 15 minutes without stopping, won't be any more longer probably, I'm almost exhausted." - I was thinking.

20 minutes passed. Calf is talking to me: "You won't get much further...". After those 20 minutes a hope started to talk to me quietly: "Don't charge too much and you can make it". A rain started to rain. A warm rain at spring. This was mystical: rain at night and a lone runner in the middle of a street. "I'm almost out of stamina, what's the time? 23 minutes? Still far! Keep the pace!".

"Time passed: 24 minutes 59seconds" said lady for runkeeper. 5 minutes more and I'll be running for 30 minutes! But I had to come down. In 5 minutes a lot can happen.

28 minutes and I knew I can make it. I even found extra strength to run faster, I felt like I'm almost flying. Nothing could stop me! And then:

"BEEP BEEP BEEP" - it was pulsometer saying: "your heartbeat is above 160, slow down". It means I should slow down or stop. I didn't respond to that. Runkeeper did: "Workout completed".

I made it! 30 minutes of continuous running! I can call myself a runner now! And I had so much power that I could run more! After only 4 weeks of practising!

And you know what? It's only beginning of the great adventure.

What was the key? Breaks to let the muscles regenerate. Breathing. I almost stopped 2 times because of colic. I deal with it by breathing more air.

Now I'm off to stretching.