Sunny Days are meant for long walks

So yesterday I laced up my new kicks and since it was a balmy 74 degrees on the last day of winter, I went for a walk. The night before I downloaded Zombies Run! Now let me preface this entry by saying I love gimicky stuff. I wish I could say, at this point, I love to run and I wouldn't stop unless someone told me to. But that's not me. That's mainly the reason I have about a dozen health and fitness related apps downloaded on my iPhone.

I discovered Zombies Run! on a Sparkpeople message board about motivation to exercise. Well it works. I was skeptical cause I checked and have spent less than $15 on iTunes since my first iPod in 2005, so saying I hate spending money on apps is somewhat of an understatement. And Zombies Run! is $7.99, so it was a big plunge. But like I said, I like gimmicky things (and I have a secret obsession for audio books), so this seemed to have potential.

But it's catchy. Basically, you're a runner in a Zombie Infestation (just go with me) and you have to run and collect stuff to help out Abel Township. Your music plays along at times, so you don't have to sacrifice that, but there's some comedy via the radio hosts in the app. There's 30 missions (I can only currently see 13), but you have to do things, like assign the objects you "find" along the way to various locations, to unlock the missions. Each mission takes about 30 minutes to complete. I don't know if it was the sunny weather, the new sneakers, or Zombies Run!, but my walk turned into a 4 mile adventure with a 16:10 pace. So I'm only 1 "mission" in, but it motivated me to more than double my average distance.

It's currently only available in the Apple store, but will be coming to Android this spring.

I want to become a runner.

Some back story on my (rather brief) history as a runner. I've tried a few times now to really get healthy and refocus my priorities in terms of health. I purposely phrased it like this, because I realize now it's not just about losing weight. I think that so many times when I tried to just lose weight, but failed to address the other stuff, just pushed me farther and farther away from being successful. One of those times, I decided to try running. I spent possibly the best $2.99 (now it's $3.99), and downloaded Run 5k. It used to be called Couch to 5k, and you can download tons of plans online for free. I like the app though, because I need someone to tell me when to start and stop running. It's all a psychological thing, but you know when you feel like you just can't go any more and you just want to stop? Well I do, just that. I stop. But if that little timer is ticking down and saying I have 2 minutes left, you better bet I'm not going to stop.

The point of the app/program is that you work your way up to running. The first time I tried it, those first 30 seconds were absolutely miserable. But I kept going, and made it about 4 weeks in. I think that was about 2 minutes running, max. But one day I stepped the wrong way and I'm pretty sure I screwed up my sciatic nerve so I figured I should rest and let it heal. Well that didn't really happen, but ironically, as long as I stay active and  do some sort of athletic activity, it doesn't really hurt much.

This fall, I started Run 5k again- from the beginning. I had lost about 25 pounds over the summer, and had worked at a job that kept me on my feet all the time. So I was looking to keep up that level of energy. So I made it up through about week 7 and took a break for the cold months. I probably could have run outside still, but I was running at like 11pm, so it was cold. Trust me.

So now I've started back up where I left off, and I can feel that I haven't been running in awhile, but I still managed a 33 minute "run" (5 warm-up/20 run/1 walk/2 run/5 cool-down). And when I'm on there, the motivating fact is still that I am running. Not fast, but I'll get there. Maybe at some point, I'll set a goal to run a 5k, but that's something I definitely have to work my way up to.