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):

monkey shoes

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.