personal trainers and running.

So I got a personal trainer.  His name is Gene and he is pretty fantastic.  I had my first session with him last night and felt really good afterwards.  He had me do four different stations of exercises:  kettle bell raises, behind the head triceps raises, mountain climbers, and 20 lb ball raises.  I'm SURE there are more technical, legit terms for all of those, but that's what I did.  After two epic fails of mountain climbers, he changed it to throwing the 20 lb ball at the wall and catching it as fast as possible.  I don't know about y'all, but 20 lbs is dang heavy.  We did each of those sections four times.  

He also had me do dead lifts with kettle bells.  We started at 25 lbs and went all the way up to 65 lbs.  I was SHOCKED with myself.  Impressed, shocked, proud, etc... I totally enjoyed the experience and felt amazing working out instead of sitting on the couch.  And Gene was supportive and totally understood my personality and feisty attitude.  

Not only did I handle the PT session well last night, but Gene gave me a regimen to follow when we weren't working together.  He told me to work on some machines (standing machines, NOT sitting machines) and he told me to do the track, alternating laps jogging and walking.  When he first said that, I thought there was no way I could jog a whole lap without passing out or dying.  But tonight, I did exactly what he said:  walked a lap, jogged a lap.  I did that for 6 laps, which is half a mile.  Which if you ask me is a damn good start for someone who has never ran anywhere.  I was so proud of myself for jogging those laps without stopping.  Ben was right there with me the whole way, pushing me and encouraging me and handing me water.  I think I could have done a whole mile just fine, but my knee started to hurt and I didn't want to push myself and not be able to work out later.  So Ben ran a few more laps and I did some kettle bell raises on my own, then cooled down.

For anyone who didn't see it, this was my Facebook status last night.  It sums up how I feel exactly.

I'm just so extremely thankful.  I don't think I ever gave myself enough credit for the things I could do.  I feel amazing.  Jogging tonight, I could see myself in the glass wall above the pool and I wasn't upset about what I saw.  I was confident and knew that one day I'd be able to run without stopping or walking in between.  There really is something about working out the changes your outlook, puts you in a good mood and makes you feel great.  And I just can't wait to keep going.