It's officially spring! Let's just ignore the fact that it's supposed to be in the 30's this week and might possibly snow on Tuesday night. It's still officially spring!
We've actually been lucky the last few weekends and have gotten pretty decent spring weather for a few days. Which automatically makes me want to spend as much time outside as possible. I need to make up for all the time I haven't been spending outside over the last several months. On the nice days, I've driven around with the windows down (I haven't had the courage to put the top down, yet), rollerbladed, taken the dog to the p-a-r-k and for long walks several times, and run a few times.
Even thought I haven't really run (like, at all) since my last half in September while I let my foot rest a bit, I decided two Saturdays ago to take advantage of the weather and head out for a short(ish) run. I planned to take an old familiar route, which takes me from my apartment down to the Jersey City waterfront and back. My apartment's on a hill, so there's a short downhill at the beginning of the run and then a short uphill at the end. Other than that, it's a fairly flat, easy, 3.5 mile (or so) run. I wasn't going for any land speed record or anything, just wanted to get back in the swing of things. And not die. That's a general goal of mine whenever I run.
It took me about 35 minutes to finish the run (so about 10 minute miles, which isn't horrible for me, even when I was running regularly). While it felt good to be working out outside again, I felt kind of awful.
I apparently forgot that running is hard. It's hard on your joints. It's hard on your lungs. It's hard on you mentally.
But I still went out that day and bought new running shoes (because my old ones have holes forming on the mesh on top, and the sole of one is kind of coming off in chunks). I broke them in a bit on the treadmill during the week. And by a bit, I really do mean a bit. I think I did about 1.5 miles on the treadmill, and I took a break after the first mile to do some strength exercises. I can't do the treadmill for more than 10 minutes or so without turning homicidal from boredom.
And then I went for another run this past Saturday with my new shoes. Back outside, back on the same route down to the water. According to the Nike+ app, this run was actually a little faster, 9:33 minutes/mile. It still felt pretty crappy. But I did it, with only a few walk breaks.
At this point, I have no aspirations to run halves or really anything longer than 6 or so miles. It just doesn't appeal to me at all. But, I still like to get out there. I just need to remind myself to start slow, and that soon, that 3.5 mile route isn't going to feel so horrible.
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