Sunday, August 22, 2010

My FIrst Jog

I have always wanted to jog in the park. The cardio workout on the gym treadmill is not the same like a jog in the park.  You may be running at higher speed and you may be able to do more distance on the treadmill but you are never able to do the same on the track.  I found this out many years ago during an inter gym relay.

Some friends have been asking me to join them for jogs.  I have always wanted to jog in the park but have since shunned the idea after the gym relay experience.  I was chatting online yesterday with a fellow blogger who jogs regularly.  He gave me some pointers.  I asked if he could accompany me and show me the ropes, especially on the stretching and warm up sessions before the jog.

Time was fixed at 7.30 am today.  It was kind of early for a Sunday.  Furthermore my day only ended around 3.45 am today.  I had approximately three hours of sleep before waking up.  I was really tempted to text my friend and ask for a raincheck.  But I know myself too well.  Always procrastinating and finding excuses.  I told myself I can always come back after that and sleep the whole day through.  Besides I really wanted to run.  I wanted to be able to run on the ground just as well as I could on the treadmill.  I wanted to overcome the barrier.

I arrived at the park on time.  My friend showed me some warm up and stretching techniques which we did together.  Then we started with a brisk walk for approximately two hundred meters.  Then he told me to start running.  I must say that I was a lot more nfident because of his presence.  Just in case anything happened.

I was pleasantly surprised.  There was no strain on the lower limbs.  The track was pretty flat except for a short undulating stretch.  I managed about one and a quarter round around the lake before the sky turned dark.


We decided to call it off and went for breakfast at two different locations. He gave me more pointers based on his observation during my run.

I think this can be addictive.  I look forward to the next jog at the park.

Thanks buddy for your pointers and for watching over me this morning.

3 comments:

Skyhawk said...

Jog is fun and definitely differ from the treadmill. My target is to jog 500km pa and I believe I have exceeded that. Enjoy and hope you will like it.

carpe diem said...

skyhawk...Yeah I like it. 500km....wow!!! Some pointers from you perhaps?

Skyhawk said...

Carpe: Just think about 10KM per week and you can split the 10K into 1 or multiple runs...after 52 weeks, you can achieve that. Besides those 1/2 or 1/4 Marathons that I run (I run almost all, you name it), I do practice running 12KM on every Sun morning...so 500K is achievable. You may need a running mate to encourage you...and I have few...keep it up man...it's always fun to run on the park than treadmill. Cheers

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