I got out of class an hour early last night (Side note — a few students, including me, got figuratively slapped on the hands for using an technique on my last project, tracing a photo, that had not been taught yet. Are you kidding me? I’m not allowed to figure out how to do something on my own to make my homework assignment come out like I wanted it to be? Gimme a break.) so I had time to go for another run.
I ran my extremely boring 3.1-mile route back and forth on the street in front of my apartment complex. The route consists of back and forth on the 0.5-mile long street. My apartment complex is located about 0.2 miles down it, so I can break it up into out-and-back sections of 0.4 and 0.6 miles. I run 0.6-0.4-0.6-0.4-0.6 and then the path from my door to the complex entrance and back is another 0.5. EXTREMELY repetitive and boring. But it’s better than nothing.
After Sunday’s crappy run, and after reading Jen’s account of her 12-miler, I decided to do a run-walk sequence last night. I ran for 9 minutes, and walked for 1 minute. I did that three times, then ran the rest of the way home to finish the 5K in 37:02, average heart rate of 176. Even slower than Sunday’s run. How pathetic.
However, despite the extremely depressing slower time, I felt a bit better about things thanks to all the encouraging comments I got yesterday. Right now I’m out of shape, it’s still pretty hot and humid outside, I haven’t been eating particularly well either, and I don’t get enough sleep. There are a lot of factors conspiring against any decent run performances at the moment, and I’m just going to have to work through them.
I’m going to make another attempt to run small distances again before the weather gets too cold. I’ll probably start next week doing 1 or 2 miles and see how my knee feels. I will spare you the details of how fat, weak and easily winded I have become.
While I ran last night (2.5 miles), I was thinking about your comment that it will take a month until running is no lnger annoying. I couldn’t agree more. I HATE that I feel so out of shape- huff, puff, sweat. It’s HARD right now and I can remember the not-so-distant past when 3 miles was like nothing, 6 miles was easy! I really wish I was back to that point NOW! I have no patience.
It brings great comfort to know that I’m not the only one merely grinding through the miles. Seeing people bounding about on fresh legs as I methodically trudge through my runs can be so frustrating. It does get better, right?
I find the best way to avoid being winded and knees hurting is to watch TV. My knee never hurts while watching TV. I get winded just reading about people running.
ha – I ran for the first time in a while last night. I was thinking about my sister, honestly, and taking advantage of health and all that jazz. it turned out to be less painful than I thought it would be – but I think that has a lot to do with the weather having cooled down here.