Better and better by the week, but do I like it yet?

It has been a couple of weeks since my last post. I have continued to train and have continued to increase my time and my speed. I am proud to say that this week I ran for a whooping 20 minutes straight. I thought I was going to die during the last five minutes, but I did it. And I kept telling myself I will get to 20 minutes if it kills me. Like I said at the beginning of the year I am going to run a 5K if it kills me. So in that 20 minutes I ran just over 1 and a quarter mile. Now for someone who never even ran the mile in high school this is a BIG deal! My one issue at this point is that in order to run the 5K I will need to be able to run for at least an hour. At this point that just sounds miserable. The biggest reason for this is my pace. At this point I am running a 15 minute mile. There are a couple reasons for this. First my knees are 55, second my lungs seems like they are 55 too. Over the past three weeks I have been getting a series of shots in my knees (cortisone and euflexa) to ease the pain and lubricate my knees so that I don't have to get two knee replacements at the age of 33. As for my 55 year old lungs, my asthma has been killing me. After two weeks on oral steroids, I was still having complications so I was put on a second inhaled steroid. Yippee! Well at least my lung functioning is improving. But for these reasons I have kept my pace relatively slow, although I have increased my speed from a 20 minute mile, which is where I started. Hopefully I will be able to increase my pace before long so I won't have to run for an hour, because that just might kill me.

After my last post my friend asked me the all important question, "do I like it yet?" Well, I don't know if I can say that I like it but I definitely don't mind it and when I get on the treadmill after five minutes of walking I automatically start running. I also prefer running on the treadmill to walking on it. OH MY GOD! I CANNOT BELIEVE I JUST SAID THAT! I also notice that once I walk for about five minutes after my 15 or 20 min runs I am ready to start running again which is not something I am used to. So do I like it? Maybe, but I definitely don't love it yet. Maybe once I can run for an hour and not feel like I am going to die I will love it. I will keep you posted.