I've been infected

Y'all know Urban Cowboy is a running junkie, right? He actually runs marathons (26.2 miles) for fun and this is the second year he's been a member of a local competitive running league (he's currently in 4th place overall!). He's serious about running. He loves running. He is sometimes very cranky if he goes too long without running! Well, around the time of my birthday I was pretty excited because I had met my birthday weight goal (hey, it was a milestone birthday and I wanted to be in a specific body place for it, don't judge me) and was doing pretty well keeping up with the exercise gig. Since then I've been doing an ok job of staying pretty close to my weight goal and have been increasing my cardio activity to help me stay on track. Long story short, in early spring I really wanted to start a running program I found called Couch to 5K (C25K) through Runner's World or maybe Cool Running dot com (I can't remember which but you can google it if you want to find it to know more). Usually, I'm not much of a runner. I haven't really been excited about running since, probably, my freshman year of college. I like other cardio activities like dance aerobics and brisk walking or kickboxing class. BUT, the thing about running is this: 1) it burns a lot of calories in a short time period and boosts your metabolism, 2) it helps maintain core strength, 3) it requires no special equipment - except, you know, good shoes, 4) it's free and I can do it anywhere. So, I found this C25K program and really wanted to start it but I kept stalling. It's a 9 week program and the first 5 weeks consists of a lot of interval training so, for example, you walk 5 min then run 3 min then walk 90 sec then run 3 min, etc. The times change as you progress and they get longer and longer. I kept stalling because I don't own a digital watch and don't know how to operate Urban Cowboy's. Also, it seemed a bit overwhelming to track myself with only a watch - like, what if I mess up and would that mean I had to start that week over? Ok, THEN I found a C25K podcast that a guy created to help himself and he has music and tells you when to start and stop running and does all the interval training timing for you. Cool, I think, because now I can just jump into this program with no worries. So, Urban Cowboy downloaded each week's podcast onto his MP3 player for me and I started. I just finished week 5, which was difficult because I had a lot of things working against me, and I am actually really proud of myself because I ran, without stopping, the full time and that was the longest time I've continuously run since, like, my freshman year of college! Tomorrow is week 6 day 1 and I'm looking forward to it! So, it's official...I've been infected. Urban Cowboy's running craziness has seeped into my brain and I now run for health benefits and (gasp!) personal satisfaction!