Well, it's true. Today's run was not fun. I had several elements working against me today, and I almost succumbed to the most vicious one: laziness. But, I didn't. I went to the park and I finished the workout. Little victory #1: Left the house. Little victory #2: Finished the run.
Let's see, here's my list: tired from moving, sore from painting (squatting, reaching, rolling, etc.), queasy and uncomfortably from cramps (sorry guys), sleepy from being waken up by my screeching and fighting animals, and a little congested from one allergy or another.
So yeah, despite all that, I got up and went. And I hated it the whole time. This is no, "I'm so glad I went because it all got better when I started running" story. Legs hurt, stomach hurt, arms hurt, COULDN'T BREATHE!
Little victory #3: First run of the season in high humidity (86% on my Weather Channel app). With that, I'm officially not looking forward to running this summer.
Let's continue the whining, shall we? I actually cut my second to last running interval short by about 5 seconds. Pathetic. Why not just go the last 5 seconds? It's not like I wouldn't have recovered somehow, right?
On that note, little victory #4: Running the last leg even though I excused myself from doing it after the second to last leg. I did it slow, and it hurt, and I whined internally the whole time, but I did it.
Little victory #5: Despite my whining and moaning and lack of oxygen, I somehow managed to finish only slightly behind my normal pace. Two miles in 28:20 (instead of two miles in 28:00).
Finally, little victory #6: I felt great after and for the remainder of the day. Lesson learned, again. And I'm glad I got to run after having so many days off (haven't worked out since Tuesday).
Sorry for the rant. Let's call this a slump. I think my future motivation on these crappy days will be to step back a "week" in the workout. I could have done Week 1 today and finished fine. It would have been less painful and I wouldn't have been so close to quitting. But is that okay? Do I allow myself that concession?
What about you? I still want to know when you know you need to walk instead of run. Do you ever give yourself an easy workout?
Next run: TBD.
This is the last week of the moving fiasco that is April. Things will be getting easier. I am considering giving myself a try at a treadmill workout. I haven't tried it yet. What should I expect? Easier or harder?
In my opinion the treadmill is a much easier run because of the lack of terrain. However, it is incredibly boring. This, for me, actually makes it harder to do because I have nothing to look at besides a TV and I find myself constantly counting commercials until it's over =) Good luck!
ReplyDeleteTreadmills have their advantages and disadvantages, in my opinion. I like the ability to tailor your workout with exact speed, incline, time, etc. and monitoring your distance, time, kcals, and heartrate is fun and interesting to me (some people adjust the difficulty to maintain a target heartrate for their workout).
ReplyDeleteThe downsides are lack of terrain (as mentioned above) and NO WIND (read: my temp warms up much faster when I treadmill and I feel as though I sweat more). You can use a fan to help, but it's not the same as outdoor/track running.
Good luck!!