Day Two of Jogging

This post is late. I jogged Thursday morning and it felt really good. Jogging still makes my lungs hurt and my heart pound but I'm being cautious about not aggravating my asthma too much.

On the Burke-Gilman Trail, I have to coax myself to actually jog rather than briskly walk because there's a certain level of chest puffing comparison that makes me feel completely inadequate and self conscious.
My mind races with thoughts like:
What if I have to stop jogging while I'm passing another jogger?
What if I look really stupid jogging? In fact, I'm fairly sure I look really stupid when I'm jogging.
Why do people wear work out clothes just to walk their dog?
All these people have crazy amounts of jogging gear and I'm wearing cheap Fred Meyer shoes and a T-Shirt.
Which brings me to my shoes. I think I'll need better jogging shoes soon. My toes are rubbing up against the sides of my shoes.

If nothing else, I end my jogging feeling really good and energized. I just have to remember this feeling to get started.

Today, Jeff and I hiked around Mount Saint Helens in leu of jogging. I've never been down there before and found myself in awe. Seeing cross sections of the huge amounts of ash is jarring and amazing at the same time. I could stare at Mount Saint Helens for hours studying her grooviness. I dislike having to come back to freeways and cellphones whenever I leave the peacefulness of the national parks.

Day One of Jogging

After watching my 10 year old niece do a triathlon and spending the last several months in a post-accutane burnout, I decided to start jogging. I bought a pair of jogging shorts that allow me to safely store my music player and inhaler. It's true that I look like a tool wearing jogging shorts but at least I have wicked tattoos to compensate for this. I'm feeling more motivated to jog than ever because I'm not making it about weight loss. Frankly, I don't care if I lose weight or not, jogging is about me and not anyone's perceptions of myself. This is about getting my energy back, challenging myself to do something I've always gave up on, and exploring places at a faster pace than I could do by just walking. Another added bonus would be helping to control my asthma.
In the past, I have failed jogging regimens because I have really bad walking habits. My core is non-existant and I usually shuffle. When I jog, I land on my feet correctly but really hard which is bad for my knees. So I guess I'm trying to focus on getting a good form down and monitoring my breathing. I found the video below really helpful to get a good form started. Having good posture and keeping my arms at my waist really made a difference in my stamina. Woo!

I developed my own program based entirely on weeding out garbage from the internet. My goal is to jog Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for about 20 minutes/1 mile with 60 second intervals of jogging surrounded by quick walking. I downloaded a free pedometer app for my mp3 player, this helps me judge my distance, pace, and time. Today I jogged two 30 second intervals but walked over 20 minutes and over a mile so I feel okay about this. I did a couple sun salutations afterwards for stretches as well as a couple of leg muscle focused stretches on the exercise ball. I know I could walk a lot more than this without feeling icky but the small amount of jogging I added really made me feel great, much better than I would have after a walk.