You may know, especially if you're following my twitter feed, that I started "running" six or seven weeks ago. Running is in quotes here because, frankly, I can't in good conscience call what I do (or at least what I was doing in April) actual running. I know too many people who are bona fide runners (not to mention the marathoners) to put any of this in the same category. But after a long winter of sitting and knitting, and now that I live in a part of the country where pools are ridiculously hard to come by, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and get my ass outside.
I live very near a lake, on relatively flat land, and there's a decent turnaround point 1.1 miles up the road. Also, I believe in costumes, which probably sounds weirder than it is: I believe that having activity-specific clothing can help with a bit of the motivation (not to mention the execution) so I went and got myself a new (orange!) running shirt.
By the time I got motivated enough to go (and the weather had inched high enough above freezing), I'd already lost a race to the starting line, which is too bad (motivation number one down the drain). But my need to counter the winter was still strong enough for me to get up and go, even knowing I'd never make it the full mile, let alone the 2.2 round-trip. But I was heartened by the several stories I have from friends who started at ground zero and worked their way up to serious distance running. Alternating running and walking (I have no idea what the increments were, and they definitely shifted), I made my way there and back. Then I slept for pretty much the rest of the day. The next day, everything from my waist down was in unbelievable pain. But after a few weeks of going out every other day (or sometimes, let's face it, every other other day), I was able to make it one way without stopping, and then recently I "ran" the round-trip distance straight through.
I have never done anything this consistently without someone giving me a schedule or dragging me out. Ever.
Earlier this week I decided to expand the route a bit, for a few reasons. First, even though much of the second mile was still a struggle to finish, turning around at the 1.1 mile mark seemed like it was messing with whatever semblance of a stride I was hitting at that point. Second, the last bit of my run is on a [very] slight incline, which is hard to go up if you're already struggling; I figured that expanding the flat part would help me push to expand the distance I was getting without forcing me to strain too hard on the uphill battle (as it were). Third, in the interest of getting into some sort of shape, the goal of all this is to get and keep my heart rate up, which will only happen if I can sustain the running for longer than just the 2.2 miles, so continuing to make the route longer seemed like a good idea. As it happens, 2.65 (or so?) miles was not a hard distance to expand to.
That's when I started investigating if there were maybe any 5k races in the area I might be interested in running. I mentioned the possibility to two friends, both of whom were sure that I'd be able to do it (despite the, er, "rolling" course description). This morning, though, I started playing out the conversations wherein I would say, "Don't get your hopes up, folks. 95% humidity is not easy to run in and I really doubt that I can get there in a week." I've been running in fantastic weather recently, but the tides have turned and the gods are turning against me a little. I was about to write the race off entirely.
And yet.
2.7 miles this morning, in the insane humidity, all taken care of. That 5k is definitely back in the Maybe Pile. And I'm thinking about taking the quotes off my "running."
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