DAY 17 - ROLLER COASTER RUN

Greetings,

This morning's run was a bit of a roller coaster, so I thought I'd blog about it.

I headed out around 5:20am and when I arrived at Kelly Drive I had already started to sweat before I even stepped out of the car. It was SOOOO hot, humid and hazy. I thought, "This is not gonna be fun in this weather."

I was planning on running 15-min and 12-min run intervals with a 1-min walk in between. So, I shook it off and began my 2-min warm-up walk. As I warmed up, I was feeling great and reconsidered that this might not be such a bad run after all.

Then I started to run and things turned bad again. My knees were so stiff and rigid. I could hardly bend my knees to run. It wasn't exactly painful, just awkward and uncomfortable. I was a bit worried that this might happen because my knees felt funny after my run on Monday. But I did 30 minutes on the StairMaster and lifted weights on Tuesday to loosen them up a bit, and they felt fine up until I started to run this morning.

Anyway, I pushed through the uncomfortable feeling, and after about 20 strides, they felt fine. A minute into running, I had forgotten all about my knee issue and was ready to get through my first 15-min running interval. Then I realized that my breathing was labored, already. I had just started running, so it was way too early to start huffing and puffing.

I was so focused on my knees during the first few minutes of my run that I didn't realize that I was sucking in thick, hot air. Five minutes in and I was dripping with sweat and trying to adjust my breathing to compensate for the lack of "fresh" air. At this point, things are not looking so good.

However, I push on and try to find my rhythm. It's getting hotter by the minute but I won't stop. Ten minutes in I'm thinking I might throw the towel in early because I'm sweating bullets and I'm focusing so hard on breathing. But, I keep running anyway because I'm not actually in pain or gasping for air, just a bit uncomfortable.

The next time I glance at my watch, I see I've almost reached the 15-minute mark and I re-evaluate my situation. I'm actually feeling OK now and I'm thinking maybe I could keeping going and reach 20 minutes, which was my goal to accomplish by the end of the week. Somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes I started to enjoy myself. My breathing regulated and I was feeling great.

So, I keep trucking right past 15 minutes. I reach 19 minutes and I'm still feeling fine. But considering the weather, I don't want to overdo it. I stop at 20 minutes and take a minute to regroup. Then I pick right back up for the last 7 minutes of my 30 minute session. These last 7 minutes were a breeze, even though I am dripping with sweat when I'm done.

Despite all the ups and downs this morning, I ended on a great note: I reached 20 minutes of non-stop running today, ahead of schedule. I was stoked!

Today turned out to be a good training day!



Totally stoked,

Almost Thirty