I have never been a fitness / running buff. Since 1994, I tried everything: becoming a gym member, getting a personal trainer, doing it myself ... but I never seemed able to garner enough interest within me to continue and be fit.
This changed around 1 month plus ago when I bought my Garmin Forerunner 610 watch (with the heart rate monitor) - recommended by a friend of mine. The amount of data that it generates (and I am definitely a data buff!) and stores in the cloud (don't worry - you can make it private) is amazing. After my runs, I just put on a Garmin USB stick to my computer and the Garmin watch automatically syncs my most recent running data to the cloud. The data includes: my distance, my speed/pace, where I ran (showing a Bing / Google maps path), my heart rate, elevation levels, the time etc.
A month and a bit ago when I started, I ran 2 km with 6 stops! I stopped each time because I was too 'puffy' - too tired. After each stop, I ran again. and then I ran again. 6 times I stopped! But I kept on running 2 or 3 times a week after that first time.
Slowly, I began to improve: 2 weeks ago, I only stopped twice, and last week I stopped once for the first time. Finally, today (I just finished my run), I kept on running with no stops 2.08 km distance in 11.51 seconds (or 10.5 km/hr average speed or 5:42 min/km average pace). My next goal is to run 3 km with no stops, then 4 km, then 5 km and perhaps one day soon, 10 km with no stops.
The other insight I got out of this is: My weight dropped from 1 month plus ago from 72.5 kg to 68.6 kg today. That's almost 4 kg in just over a month! It is probably better than any diet programs out there.
I also found myself happier and stronger in the past few weeks. Perhaps it's the hormones (endorphin etc) that are released when we do sports.
What an amazing thing this human body is!! It is really geared to improving itself - as long as one puts on the effort to do it.
