Day 147: Desperately Seeking Endorphins

I hate fall. I hate it. I hate it. I've heard complaining about the weather amounts to a person not being able to deal with reality. I like that. But the reality I can't deal with is not that it gets cold in the fall. It's that I live somewhere where it gets cold in the fall. I'd give up just about everything to be in California right now. Soo..not only do I need to run to fight off the winter blahs, but I have to convince myself to actually go run in this suck-ass weather. I hate it. I thought I would run yesterday, but I couldn't get outside. I was pretty sure I'd run today, as the stupid brats would be in school.

It took a lot of convincing and procrastinating, but I finally dug out my winter pants (which are too long for running), my cold weather under armour, and a stocking cap. Fuck. This. I want to sell all this shit.

Last time I ran it was 94 degrees heat index. That was one week ago. Today it was 62. Which is nowhere near as cold as it's going to get, it just pisses me off that there's no in between. The in-between of 94 and 62 is what it is 365 days a year in LA. That's all I'm asking for.

I had only had a Dew and some water this morning, and I was hungry, so I threw back a couple handfuls of healthy cereal before I headed out.

I had a stomachache this morning. It didn't affect my run too much, but it definitely didn't help.

I started messing with my mp3 player at one point, to take it off random and leave it on the Poison cover album (Poison covering other songs). The distraction of messing with the mp3 seemed to help. And I love running to Poison. Queue the victory speech where I have to thank Poison for helping me finish a run.

But alas the lower chest cramps started up, which are impossible to stop. I pressed on. I kept checking the time, hoping it would click over to the next minute right when I hit a corner. As it didn't, I kept running. You would think if I could do this for several blocks, I could do it for the whole 5K. Thankfully, it finally lined up and I quit. I don't care. I had already turned off the route.

By the way, I was sweltering in my winter gear. And I really need to figure out a way to pack water without spending any money or having to lug a water bottle.

So I made it 21 minutes today. My last run was 17. I decided to take a look at the Couch to 5K Plan to see if I could wiggle back onto a schedule. Days 49 and 50 were 17 minute runs. Days 54 and 57 were 20 minute runs. Day 59 was run 12, walk 5, run 12. And Day 61 was a 24 minute run. Soo..I'm going to reset and aim for a 24 minute run in two days. (I refuse to deal with walks scheduled into my runs.) Then, instead of going for a 5K on Day 70, I'll move into my made up 10K plan, where I'm just increasing by a few minutes here and there. Eventually the time will cross over the 5K distance.

Oh, one last note...left knee was a bit sore after the run.

Weather: 62, Sunny, Breezy 3 mph, 54% Humidity
Time: 11:30am; 21 minute run
Distance: 2.68K (1.67m)
Elevation: +44.6/-35.5/net 9.1 ft
5K/10K: 41:11/1:27:04 (I actually thought I was going a little faster today..)