So cliché, I know. But, it kinda is, so I’m going with it.
I just completed the first workout of the Couch to 5K (now Run to 5K) program on my iPhone. I last opened the app and completed the second week on 6/18/11, almost 6 months ago. I could say that this past fall has been one of the busiest and most stressful times of my life – in addition to being a lowly public servant I also have a photography business that is starting to take off. And I committed to taking bridge lessons, and I teach a college course. I’ve overextended myself, feeling like “butter spread over too much bread.” (Get it? Anyone, anyone? Bueller, Bueller?) I could blame the fact that I haven’t exercised in that long on all of that, and that’s exactly what I have been doing this fall. Not anymore! It only took me 33 minutes to complete the workout, and if I can’t find 33 minutes, then I really am spread too thin and need to reevaluate everything else I do.
I bought these last March (probably the first time I failed to complete the Couch to 5K program):
My best friend, who moved away when her husband got a new job, is really into the primal/paleo diet and lifestyle, and she had some of these Vibram Five Fingers shoes. I have really long toes, like monkey toes. I could probably peel a banana with them or even hang upside down from a tree. I assumed after trying on a pair that I would never be able to wear them. Well, she convinced me to give other styles a try as she insisted that they all fit differently. I’m happy to say that I found a pair (a mens pair, but whatever, they fit), and I have loved wearing them just as casual shoes. They also embarrass my husband so much that I wear them just to annoy him.
Anyway, I wore them today to run/walk on my treadmill (yes, I own a treadmill, which until today was an extension of my closet). I LOVED them. I really felt like I was running, and to be corny, I felt like a gazelle! A big, lumbering, last-of-the-pack-eaten-first gazelle but a gazelle nonetheless. They naturally make you land on the balls of your feet, so you don’t have that impact that comes from hitting with your heel first. I can tell that I’ll have some soreness in my calves as these muscles probably haven’t been used in a while, but I will definitely be using them on the treadmill from now on. Eventually I will go outside to exercise, but it’s cold, and I’m a wimp.
So far, so good.
You know, those Five Fingers do kind of look like robotic Hobbies feet. Yes, I got the reference.
Totally meant to type Hobbit. Damn you auto correct.
They do! If only they had some fake hair on top they’d be even more accurate.