My Mother, The Runner

My mom came up over the weekend to visit. Friday night, she said those dangerous four words..."I've thought about running." There is little more that sparks an interest in me than a conversation about running. If you are a new runner considering the sport, I see you as a "project", a person I can dump all my life-lessons onto and mold and train to grow to love running as much as I do. If you are a seasoned runner, I see you as my Yoda, my Mr. Miyagi...someone I can learn from and strive to be like. Either way, I usually leave the conversation thinking "That was Great! How inspirational!" and the other lucky person leaves, thinking "God Almighty, I thought she'd never stop".

As soon as the word left her mouth, I had shoved my favorite running book into my mother's hands, pointing out my favorite sections...how to start running, what to wear, what shoes do you need. Turns out, she needed a good pair of shoes. We decided on cross-trainers, as she wasn't exactly sure if she would enjoy running that much, and would then opt for walking. I instructed her on the different between walking shoes, running shoes, and cross-trainers, and Saturday morning, we were up and out the door headed to buy my mother shoes.

And 24 hours later, there we were...following the running book's advise. It advises new runners to start out running 2 minutes, walking 2 minutes, and doing that 7 times in a session, and do four sessions throughout Week 1. Week 2 increases the running minutes to 3 minutes, Week 3 moves it up to 4 minutes, and so on. So we were doing the first session of Week 1...run 2 minutes, walk 2 minutes.

Despite jokes about insurance card locations and how my route took us by a cemetery, she did really good! We completed the workout, she pushed herself, and I think she impressed herself with how she did. After a quick talk about the importance of rest days, we rewarded ourselves with a jump in the pool.

So if you have a spare moment (this does not include you, Mother), please leave a comment of encouragement for her. She reads this regularly, so if someone else runs across this, let her know you are behind her and she can do this!

However, if she starts beating my time, we'll have to have a discussion about who's the teacher and who's the student...