The picture below shows 4 of the “Couch Potato to 5 K” training group (two–oops5o–make that three strong, brave women over 50 and one wanna-be) crossing the finish line in their 5K race on June 5th, 2009.  See their story below, contributed by Helen Robinson, one of the racers!  Way to go, girls!!

Left to right:  Sylvia Swiger, 54, an ex-marathoner, Allison Smith, 42, the organizer of the group, although not an athlete herself, Kathy Sheldon, 50, ex-soccer-player, and Helen Robinson, 54, also not an athlete.

One afternoon in January 2009, three of the moms in our mother-daughter group (a fantasy group at this point, as our daughters – now in high school – have been disengaging for years) were walking together, NC, as we often do. Out of the blue, Allison suggested getting in shape by doing the “couch potato to 5K in 10 weeks” race training course. Silvia and I embraced the idea – though, Silvia, as an ex-marathon runner, with much less trepidation than I.

We talked about times, location, clothes, body image (we decided to say nothing derogatory about our bodies during this period – needless to say that lasted about a minute) and the next Wednesday we began. Run for 30 seconds, walk for a minute. Run for 30 seconds, walk for a minute. Whew.

This was easy. Piece of cake.

It continued to be quite easy for a few days (maybe even a week or two) – then it got hard. We whined and complained. We decided we needed new shoes.

We decided NOT to buy cute new running outfits because what if we ended up hating the program, and never used them again? We kept at it. Kathy joined us. (In fact many of the other moms joined us – briefly.) In the end, there were just the four of us training three times a week at the UNCA track.

We got to week 7 and repeated that for about 3 weeks. Then we repeated week 8 for a few weeks. Then Silvia decided that we needed a real race to work towards. We all agreed. Silvia signed us up the Chamber 5k race. Then one day we decided to run the race course. DREADFUL. There were actual hills (which felt like mountains) – and we could barely run half of it. We all got totally depressed. We talked about how were training to feel good about ourselves, not like failures.

We decided to do it anyhow. We spent much time discussing team shirts. I wanted to make shirts with giant potatoes on the front – which no one liked other than conceptually – but luckily Allison found our very cute matching shirts at Target. We decided to run the race as a team: when one of started walking, we’d all start walking. And that’s what we did. Our time was terrible, but we ran most of the way and had a great time doing it.

I’ll sum up the experience with a quote from a recent New York Times article:  “There are few things in middle age as wonderful as having streets lined with people who cheer you just for running by.”

Related posts:

1. Beautiful Women Over 50: Janet’s 39-mile Walk for Breast Cancer
2. Beautiful Women over 50: Yvette the Powerful Crone
3. Beautiful Women over 50: Farmer Nancy on Cutting Hay
4. Beautiful Women over 50: Kathy, Freelance Editor
5. Beautiful Women Over 50: Ans!

Tags: 5k, fitness, running, women over 50

This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Alternative Health, Beautiful Women >50, Health, Main. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.