Born to run.

Well not exactly. In fact for most of my life I've hated running. There was something about panting and sweating and being bored that really didn't appeal to me. At all. Then this year, I decided to try something different, and KAUST provided me with that something. They announced they would be having a Family 5K Run/Walk extravaganza. I figured this was my chance to finally fulfill a New Years Resolution. I would train to run a 5K, in three weeks.

So I made a plan, following the infinite wisdom I found on the internet, and proceeded to convince other would be runners to join me. I first asked my squash buddy. Yes, even after my accident I still took up squash and play with the same person. He took a little convincing so that he'd play with me again, but that is another story. Either way, we were walking out of the gym and I saw the sign up sheet for the 5K, turned to him and said "We should totally do this!" He said "ok."

As it turns out, he is a runner. He just didn't tell me this. So we start our training. The first day, we run for about 20 min. He looked like he was exhausted, I was ok. Wow, I thought, maybe this running thing isn't going to be that hard after all. Little did I know that the first run is the easiest.

The plan was to run every other night, so two nights after our first attempt, we went on a second run. My lungs burned, my legs ached and my stomach was not very happy, I wasn't even able to go as far as I had two nights ago. Uh oh, maybe training for a 5K in three weeks is not such a good idea, I thought. But there I was two nights later trying it again. This time I had two more runners with me. I must admit that there was a moment when I thought we all must look pretty funny because here was this one girl running with three guys. I felt like one of the ridiculous pop stars with her entourage/body guards running at her side. Run #3 was a success! I ran almost 4K.

The following runs were more advances and finally being able to run 5K in about 40 min. Now I should probably tell you that all this running was happening in the evening once it was much cooler out. Yes, incredibly it can get a cool 70 degrees here in Saudi, so we were taking advantage of the weather, paying little to no mind that the actual race would be at 10am.

The day of the race came much faster than we expected and by then we had basically split our little team into two. The ones who can run, and the ones you will jog (I was a part of the latter team). Those of us in the slower group set a goal to run/jog the 5K in less than 30 min. Amazingly, we did!

While I am not entirely sure I have bought into this whole running thing, I will attempt to continue doing it while the weather allows. Who knows, maybe by the time I leave Saudi I'll actually be one of those annoying people who wake up before work and go for a jog...