Ah yes, remember a mere two days ago when I said I would keep running Saturday mornings? What about all the other Saturdays when I said I don't get up early on Saturday mornings? Ah, well, I slept in a bit and assumed I would just wait and run tonight. I had to take a shower this morning (this whole unemployment thing is starting to take a toll on my personal care), even if it did mean turning around and running. When that was done, I sat down and checked the weather....the hour by hour actually said it was going to be cooler for a couple more hours, then get really hot, then storm. Uh, oh. Shoulda checked that before I took the shower after all.
Yet, I still wasn't ready to go. My fellow blogger/runner from the Netherlands was going for her final day in the program: 30 mins/5K. I had to check in and see how her run went and she made the 30 minutes! Inspiration received, I was ready to go.
I followed my Day 19 route, for my walk 5, run 9, walk 5 today, praying there wouldn't be a lot of people out, even though it was 11am. It's overcast already, so I was hoping people would stay inside.
Husband gave me a tip on the ear buds, so I didn't spend the whole run fiddling with them to keep them from popping out of my head like my brain had exploded out my ear. Yay! Again, when I say moldy fig, I mean, moooldy fig. Even the simplest things escape me.
It was plenty warm, but I took off nice and slow. My legs were stiff.. I had only had a Mt Dew and a couple swallows of water (my new peaches and cream oatmeal smelled so bad I almost hurled, so I skipped breakfast), and I was a little crampy just from walking. Some of that may be from the third eye, but I think it was my stellar morning diet.
My last couple of runs part of my focus has been on telling myself "I love this." "I'm doing something other people would give anything to do." And off of another runner's blog, something to the effect of, "I'm not going to be able to do this forever, so I'm going to enjoy it while I can." (I tried to go back and find the blog that was on, so credit and accurate quoting could be given, but to no avail. Apologies.) Anyway, I passed a car with RIP messages for a high school athlete that was killed this week, and I felt a wee more inspiration for getting to run today.
I took off nice and slow, mostly due to the stiffness and crampiness, and settled in for a nice long run. Just me and Eminem out on the streets today, thankfully.
One thing I do not like about this route is that past the halfway point is when I turn back towards home, and when I cross the main road to turn back, it starts going uphill. It clearly is not a severe uphill, but damn, it's hard to turn that corner, at that point, and have to trudge even slightly up. I continue to dread the big hill in the 10K, but more and more I realize I need to be fearing the pedestrian bridge at the top of the hill. I don't think there's a ramp up it, and if it's stairs I'm going to die. I'm going to again try to walk the 10K route next week. I seriously think curb cuts (the ramps on sidewalk corners) are there for runners like me, who can't pick up their feet halfway through their runs.
I seem to be able to forget about the agony of it all when I focus on how my feet are hitting the ground. I did well until about the 7 minute mark, when I ran past a giant pile of trash (held my breath, just in case), and was coming up on some walking teeny bopper girls. I was dismayed I wasn't at the 8 minute mark, but hey, it wasn't that long ago that four minutes was an insurmountable hurdle, so I kept chugging along. I checked again when I got closer to the girls, and it was STILL in the 7 minutes! Damn! So I decided I would have to cross the street, rather than try to get around them. When I got to the next intersection, I crossed the street and the alarm went off! The last minute breezed by and I made nine minutes!!!
I headed for home and got back about 1.5 minutes early. One of the neighbor kids, who I call CSI, spotted me, and after noting me walking back and forth in the alley past my house a couple of times, he had to ask what I was doing. Seriously, he's like 6. I would call him the how much does a human head weigh kid, except he's a crime fighter, and CSI is just easier to say when you're still a wee winded from a 9 minute run.
Iced the knees and neck (thanks again, third eye), and settled in for two lovely rest days until I repeat today's run. I think I need it as my right thigh is still hurting, enough that I'm squealing sometimes when I have to lift my leg. This can't be good. In related news, I think I had a dream about leg muscles last night. Not mine, just in general, surely due to the fact that I now have leg muscles in places that, until recently, I wasn't aware there were muscles..
Weather: 75, mostly cloudy, no wind, 79% humidity
Time: 11am; Walk 5, Run 9, Walk 5
Distance: 2.23K (1.39m)
Elevation: +35.8/-36.1 net -.3 ft
5K/10K: 45:27/1:36:05
I warned you. More data:
I've thought about keeping this info pretty much since I started keeping track of any info on Day 10. These are the stats for just the run portion. I may not have it every day, but since I am currently doing better at staying coherent at the end of the run, I can route the portion that is just the running section and get more numbers. I would need someone who got better than a C in Stat to tell me if this is a better or worse race time predictor...smaller amount of time to calculate from, but it's all run...
Time: 9 mins
Distance: 1.26K (.79m)
5K/10K: 39:53/1:24:19
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