Day 1

Let the fun begin! Today my goal was to run a mile. Seems easy enough right? I haven't run a mile in over a year, but as of a year ago I was able to do it fairly easily...

Trying to make this as easy as possible for myself, I planned it out way in advance. I knew what to wear. I remembered my sunglasses so I didn't get a headache from squinting. Google told me the other day that running the perimeter of my block plus the block directly to the south of me is almost exactly one mile - what a convenient coincidence! Never mind that I'd be running uphill half the way, that was clearly the route I'd have to take.

My plan had been to do my first run tomorrow, Saturday. On the weekends I have no excuse - with no work to attend to, there's no way I could be too tired to run, and I couldn't make any excuse about not having enough time. So there you have it: I would help my friend Al move, then I would do my little run for oh ten minutes or so.

But today was a great day at work. I've been assisting a new executive at NBC, helping him out until he hires himself a professional assistant, and he asked me what I'd be doing this weekend. "Well...I decided this week to try to run the LA Marathon." I smiled slightly proud that I had made the decision. Yeah, the decision was that hard to make. "That's awesome," he said, "I've run a few. Mostly I do triathlons these days though." Well that got me all excited - I had found something we had in common! He was a runner, and I was attempting to pretend I was.

So when I got home there was only one thing to do. I laced up, stretched, said hi to Mario's friend Joanna, and set off.

I started down hill. A nice warm up, I thought. Easy enough - I glided past all the dog-walkers and smiled at how easy this was. I couldn't do 26.2 of them tomorrow, but I could at least see myself doing it more often. The only thing unpleasant about it were the smells; garbage, dog shit, diesel engine fumes, car engine fumes...it was enough to make me choke. But I powered through. Around the corner and still doing great. Around the next corner and...

The hill. Oh how I hate hills. Why do I always live on a hill? Why do hills seem flat when you're in a car? Why can't they seem that flat on foot?

I start huffing and puffing, doing just fine. I see a street up ahead and know it's Fountain St, about my halfway point, and I know I'm at least going to make it there --- and then something terrible happens. At Fountain, I have to stop for a moment to make sure I'm not hit by a car, and suddenly my body feels the inertia stop and starts to sag. My legs feel suddenly heavy. Blood rushes from my finger tips. Oh no! I start running again but it's too late.

I have to stop to walk about a quarter mile. At the top of the hill, I start running again, and make it back to my apartment, feeling my lungs burn and knowing I couldn't even do it, I couldn't even run a single mile. Up hill, but hey still. Mario and Joanna comfort me - Mario says when he started running a few weeks ago he could run about a half mile before getting tired. I know he's right.

So it wasn't the best first day. I slipped into my bathing trunks and took a dip into my apartment's pool (for the first time) and it felt great. I just took step two toward something: I started. If you will it, it is no dream, right? Let's see what tomorrow brings.