When I Remembered That Running is FUN #running #fitness

A recent pitch informed me that the Color Me Rad Race is coming to Philadelphia. Woo! There are certainly other color runs but the only other one I know going on this summer is on a weekend we’re out of town. I have never had a chance to do one before and always wanted to, but they definitely seem like something you need to do with family and/or friends.

If you aren’t familiar with the concept, it’s a 5k where you run and people throw colored corn starch at you. You are encouraged to wear white so you can come out looking all rainbowy-fun when you finish:

It’s just so up my alley.  I happened to mention it to my kids, thinking that Nate, my 10 year old would be into it.  I mentioned the Couch to 5k program and said that if we took the summer, I could get him running in no time.

He didn’t really have any interest, but my 7 year old did!  He jumped at the chance.

We went out for first run yesterday – Day 1 of the Couch 2 5K program, where you warm up for 5 minutes with a brisk walk and then spend the next 20 minutes alternating between running for 60 seconds and walking for 90 seconds.  Here we are after we finished up:

He did great.  He loved it.  I loved it.  I had the app going on my phone to chime in and tell us when to walk/run and some music on softly but I had it all piping out my phone speaker quietly with no headphones.

We chatted the whole way and here are some things he said while we ran:

“Mom, don’t you love the way the wind feels blowing against your face when you’re running?”

“Mom, did you hear that bird?”

“Mom, did you SEE that bird?  The blue color on his head was BRILLIANT.” (He really used the word brilliant.)

It was such a fun thing to do with him.  Lately, I’ve been having a bad time with running.  My milage had been pretty good and I was scheduled to run the Broad Street 10 Miler here in Philly when I started getting some hip and joint pain.  I had to bail last minute and I’ve just been generally down with the whole thing.  While training, running often felt like a CHORE. And stuff started to HURT because I was pushing it so hard.

And when I run, I generally get in my groove.  Headphones with music blasting and I’m wearing my Garmin Forerunner and paying close attention to my pace.

But yesterday I remembered that running is just an awesome form of exercise in a beautiful environment (if you’re outside).  You, two legs, the pavement and the great outdoors.  For all of the wonderful gym classes I do at my local fitness center, nothing, and I truly mean this, nothing gives me the sense of accomplishment and that feel-good feeling I get when I’ve finished a run.

So I just had to share.  Because I remembered that running can be fun and it took my wiser-than-his-age 7 year old to remind me of that yesterday.

More to come!  I am unsure of getting to 30 full minutes of him running (seems like a lot at his age) but my goal is to build up some of his running stamina so we can do the Color Me Rad in August at a good run pace with a few walking breaks.  Hubby and I will be splitting up the training with him because he has already asked to do Day 2 after school today with Dad!

By the way, for the Couch to 5k program, this is the one I downloaded.  There are a few different branded apps now since I first did this program 7 years ago for myself but this one I picked seemed pretty legit and was free.