Running: Why Europe might make me less lazy

Tonight my amazing cousin Jaclyn and I were dreaming together. Dreaming of travelling to Eastern Europe and backpacking our way through countries like Greece, Croatia, Hungary and Austria. We're not going to have an exact plan, we don't even know what countries we will end up in, but we want to travel and to have an adventure together. I love my cousin and I think we're going to have a phenomenal time. This is hopefully going to happen this summer and I cannot wait!!

So after all the excitement (well, she can attest, it was more in the middle of the excitement) I had to admit 2 very important things to Jaclyn.

1) I sweat. A lot. It's gross and I wish it wasn't true, but it totally is. Even on a cold winter day, I will walk into work sweating. I'm out of control you guys and I've tried everything (no advice needed) it's just a fact. A fact I've learned to live with, but if we're going to be backpacking around Europe in the summer, I felt J should know.

2) I'm totally out of shape. Though I hate that term. I'm in shape, just my shape is... round and likes to sleep a lot. You know you're not fit when you get winded just walking to the freezer to get more ice cream (that's a total exaggeration, but I'm on my way friends). Now, I have trusted motivation would come, but thus far has not and I've learned to love myself anyway. But now I'm supposed to walk around foreign countries with a backpack and I don't want to be 1/2 dead along the way, dragging J down as we go along.

So, I'm hoping that this upcoming trip to Europe will finally push me to do what I've been avoiding doing for years: Running.

But why running? you say. Why not something else? Well, because I'm not paying for a gym membership and I figure if I can be a semi-ok runner by the time we go, I can definitely walk through Europe.

Now this picture has been floating around lately:





Except in my case I will not just look like the bottom picture, but I will feel that way as well. True story. I might also feel like an 80 year old woman because I'm sure my knees and my back are going to hate me for the first few months. My body is going to be all "What the hell are you doing to me?! We should be taking a nap and then waking up and eating oreos!!!"

Nonetheless, my goal is to try to work my way into running. I guarantee my first attempt will be: run 30 seconds, dry heave for 90 seconds, walk for 5 minutes, cry. But maybe the next time I'll run 90 seconds and only dry heave for 30 seconds and that, my friends, is what I call improvement.

And in the end, all of these things are worth the effort:



J