THURSDAY, 7/8/10
Thursday's run couldn't have been any more terrible.
Back when Krist and I were going to do this together, we went and bought a 'jogging stroller' so that Finley could go with us. After Kristen decided that the running wasn't for her, the jogging stroller disappeared. Every now and then, Finley would ask to go run "with me" in the stroller, but it's been two months since I took her out in it.
Thursday morning, Finley wanted to ride, so I let her. Jonah wanted to ride his bike along with us, so the three of us headed out. Spent my warm up time talking to Jonah about video games and listening to Finley comment on birds, bugs, etc. After a few minutes, Jonah went back inside and Finley and I commenced the run. That's when things went bad.
I simply wasn't prepared to add the weight of another human being into my already-challenging running. After about five minutes, my legs were shot. I walked Finley back to the house and promised her we'd go for a walk later. Went back outside to try to run again, but it didn't happen. After about seven minutes, my legs wouldn't cooperate, so I got frustrated and gave up.
On my long, sad walk back to the house, I realized that right now, I've got to be really focused leading up to the run. I use that warm up time to get focused on what I'm about to do. Plain and simple - my running is too hard right now to introduce a lot of other stressing factors. Maybe when I'm better at it, I won't need as much focus as I do right now, but at present, it's an extremely mental task to do this running thing.
SATURDAY, 7/10/10
Made sure to get a late-night run in on Saturday night. After my tremendous let-down on Thursday, I figured I at least ought to get a little time in. Did a fifteen minute run. Probably could have gone longer, but it was late and I just wanted to get some time in. However, it was nice to not have to stress the 20 minute mark. Trust me - 15 is still plenty of work all on its own.
TUESDAY, 7/13/10
As I was walking outside to run, Kristen asked me,
"What's your record so far?"
Twenty minutes, I responded.
"I dare you to go 21!"
I shook my head and walked out, thinking she was crazy.
And then I ran 22 minutes. Boom.
One benefit of blogging this experience is that it encourages me to constantly think about what I'm learning each time I go out there. Tonight, I realize that my "wall" has moved. For weeks and weeks, my entire body wanted to quit at 12 minutes. Tonight, I realized that, somewhere along the way, it's moved to 18 minutes. That's not to say it's not hard. It's still hard at 11 minutes...and 13 minutes...and 15. But I'm hitting that OMG-I-MUST-STOP-RUNNING-BEFORE-I-DIE later. My progress has been slow, but I like noticing those benchmarks when they change.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
RUN TODD RUN, Week 11
Posted by Todd Wright at 7:00 AM
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2 comments:
First of all, I want to tease you & ask silly questions like "why on earth would you want to run?" or "was something on fire....why run?".
But the longer I read your blogs about running, the more inspired I am. It's not exactly a secret that I NEED to get my duff in motion more often. I started doing cardio/weights about 3-4x/week in January, but after getting Plantar's Fasciitis (sp??), I let it slide while my foot healed. Sadly, here we are 6 months later & my foot is not entirely 100% back to normal, but I could totally DO SOMETHING....I just haven't.
So hang in there! Keep blogging about it! It's so cool to see someone else who was saying "I can't believe I'm even thinking about doing this!" in the beginning now talking about running for 20+ minutes and enjoying it! You go, Todd!
I've completed four half marathons doing the run/walk intervals, but for the past couple months I've done nothing. It's literally like starting all over.
I'm planning on doing the Tyler half in October, so I think it's time I start training for real again. Maybe I'll even start blogging about it. I need all the accountability I can get!
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