Today I began running again for the first time in a year.  It took me several minutes to root through my drawers and find my running clothes, which had not been used in a year.  I then stuffed my now larger feet into my old shoes, dusted off my watch, and headed out the door, leaving my husband alone with the twins.

After almost a year off from running, I planned to start back with a “couch to 5K program.”  This type of program starts you out very slowly and helps you ease up to a 5K distance in 8 weeks.  The first workout in the program involved running 2 minutes, walking 2 minutes, repeated for a total of 20 minutes.   Sounds easy, right?  So I thought.

With some trepidation, I crossed the street, stepped up onto the sidewalk, and, with a deep breath, took my first few jogging steps.  Immediately, my very untoned postpartum belly sloshed and jiggled with the impact.  My knees wobbled to and fro with weakness and more than a little pain, and my gigantic nursing breasts heaved up and down with frightening gusto.  My first two thoughts were “wow, this is WAY harder than I thought it would be,” followed by, “I can’t do this, I should go back home.”  However, I decided to tough it out for the first 2 minute stretch.  I’m so glad that I did.

At the end of the first 2 minutes, I decided to keep going.  One of the things I love about running is its simplicity.  One foot in front of the other, don’t think, just keep doing it.  You eventually reach a finish line, and in crossing that finish line, you gain strength and self-confidence that can be applied to other areas of your life.  “If I did that, surely I can do this…”

By the third running interval, I was finally starting to feel better.  My muscles were learning to work with this new, fatter, wobblier body.  My ipod had finished up with a calm song and began the intro into one of my favorite angry German heavy metal band songs, and some sprinkles of rain were beginning to land on the ground around me.  The sprinkles of rain very quickly turned into a torrential downpour such as only happens in Houston.  I leaped and bounded through large puddles, completely soaked from head to toe, rain flying off my gut, music blasting in my ears, and, feeling hard-core, I smiled at the craziness of it all.

It wasn’t pretty, but I did it.  It feels good to be back.