UW-Natatorium -- First 1/2 Mile.

I hate the smell of sweat and I hate water fountains that spurt lukewarm H20. Welcome to the UW-Natatorium.

I stepped foot inside the Natatorium for the first time ever this morning. I imagined it would make me uncomfortable like the "lifting room" made me uncomfortable in high school; I don't know what to do with most of the machines and I'd feel stupid asking. I guess I thought it was something like a "no pudgy-people allowed" type of place and people would just laugh. Lucky for me, it wasn't difficult to find the treadmills (the one machine that doesn't intimidate me), nor did anyone notice my embarassingly slow warm-up speed. Everyone else had their iPods on and were busy with their own morning workout routines.

The running itself wasn't too bad. The plan was to alternate between 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds of walking (first step of the the C25K plan) after 5 minutes of warm-up, but of course it didn't work out that way. I was using the timer on the treadmill to keep track, but I kept forgetting to look at it or losing track of how long it had been. I got really bored with this, so I just decided to run at a comfortable pace (5.5 mph) and see how long I could go without over-exerting myself. I ran my first half mile since I started running a couple weeks ago (only 1, 2, sometimes 3 times per week), so I'm definitely proud of myself for that. I know it's not much, but it's better than I could have done bef0re (AND it wasn't very difficult -- I know I can run further).

Back to the Natatorium tomorrow! But I'm bringing my own COLD water.