{"ee-ee-go!"}

Jess's one-year old F has been saying "ee-ee-go!", as in "Ready, Set, GO!", and then he takes off running. It's kind of funny when he does it in the condo because there's not a lot of space, but he takes off like he's going to win a race!

I could have used a recording of F's "ee-ee-go" on my walk last night.

Frequently I've been thinking about a conversation with someone I work out with at my gym at work. Her boyfriend, an avid runner, had said that if someone wants to lose weight, they need to run. She went on to explain that he hasn't seen any other form of activity help with weight loss as much as running does.

Now I've been saying, "I don't run" or "I'm not a runner" since I started working out in 2011. It seemed like a mental game I didn't want to play - having to talk myself into running just a bit farther. But since weight loss is my goal, I'm starting to rethink my thoughts on running.

Shortly after starting my walk last night I began to jog. It didn't last long, as usual, but it was enough to get my heart rate up and give me a push. I was in the groove.

My planned route was a 5k and at the turn (1.55 miles) I decided I should start to jog again. I knew that a hill (decline) was coming next so I started to jog on the straight away. I had a good rhythm going and obviously my pace increased as I went downhill.

As I reached the middle of the hill, I told myself I should keep going until I heard my Endomondo tracker tell me I've reached "2 miles". Normally when I've tried jogging down the hill I've resumed walking shortly thereafter, but this time was different: I kept going.

I think it was the breathing that helped me. I had this very regulated inhale-through-the-nose and exhale-out-the-mouth thing going on. I'm sure I looked/sounded crazy as I was doing it. Yeah, you can pretty much guarantee that I did.

But wouldn't you know, I kept running/jogging until well past the Endomondo tracker-chick telling me I had hit 2 miles!

I hope you caught that. Were you sitting down?!

Yes, I ran for a half a mile!

I was feeling pretty good, but didn't want to "over do it" ya know, so I resumed walking. I did start jogging again near the end of my route and tried the crazy breathing thing again. I don't think I made it more than a quarter of a mile though.

It took a while for me to cool down, but I was pretty impressed with my non-running self. I finished the 5k in 47 minutes. Not my fastest ever (42 min), but pretty good for adding in some crazy-breathing running!

To top it off, this morning when I weighed myself I saw a new number! I'm not saying that my one-time experience of running was solely responsible for my overnight weight loss, but it definitely was encouraging! I also give credit to my 2 rest days as part of my weekend weight loss, but that's for another blog post.

“It’s very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit.” – George Sheehan

You probably shouldn't read this as my "How I Started Running" post, but maybe you could file it under "I'm closer to 40 than I ever was, but still trying new things."

What's your best running tip?