Week 4, Run 1: Need shoes

Last night was to be the first night for a 2 mile run, and that didn’t happen. What DID happen was a mile run, and a tortuously painful half mile walk. Ever since W3R1 where I did the whole mile and a half nonstop, each run has gotten harder and harder. By the end of the walk last night, the entire side of my foot was completely numb, and I felt like I was running entirely on the bone in the ball of my foot. Each foot-fall was pain. Not discomfort, PAIN, and it was creeping up into my ankle. My thighs were fine, my lungs were great, my calves were in good shape, buy my feet, my bloody traitorous feet, were not.

Week 3, Run 3: Totally bitching out

Thursday, Thanksgiving day, I went for a run before we left for the big meal. It was daytime, which was a first for me, and the weather was a stupid-warm 78 degrees. I started my run, and it felt wrong from the beginning. My hips felt clicky, my knee was twitchy, and my stomach was rumbling in a quiet discomforting fashion. I swear to all that is holy and good, as I rounded the corner of the loop for the first half-mile and saw my house, I think a golden halo of light from the Lord Almighty shined upon my driveway.

I completely succumbed, and quit.

Week 3, Run 2: Not bitching-out

Last night was hands-down the most difficult run I’ve had to date. It made the mile-and-half run from Sunday look like a leisurely stroll through the park while holding hands with my sweetheart. The vast divide between the two was monumental. The sad thing is, I know exactly what the reason for the difficulty is, and it’s all my fault. Okay, maybe not ALL my fault, but a good chunk of it sure is.

Week 3, Run 1: Mile and a half

First, I’m changing the format of the run reports a bit. It didn’t feel right to say “Day 1, Day 2, etc…”. I was doing it to reflect the actually day of the week, not the day of exercise. Denoting out Week/Run is far more accurate for my thinking in that it tells me what week of this I’m on, as well as what run of the week I’m talking about.

Last night was the next half mile shift up in length, to a grand-daddy total of 1.5 miles. Impressive, I know. To the regular and long-time runners, and to people in a shape that resembles health, that may not seem such a feet (God I hate puns), but for me, I was sincerely concerned. I’ve never walked a half-mile straight, at least, not straight. I’m sure at amusement parks or other events I’ve covered that distance, but not consecutively. So, it was with a bit of trepidation that I walked out of the garage last night. I expected to be stopped dead in my tracks at the mile mark, and to vainly walk/hobble the last half mile.

Here, here!

Preach it!

Week 2, day 4: Evening Run

Wednesdays are my long day. It’s the one day of the week where I have class after work, and it typically runs until 8:30 – 9:00 PM, meaning I don’t get home until 9:30 most nights. Few things say, “Screw running” as forcefully as being out of the house and on the move for 13 hours. So last night, I was happily surprised when the lecture went short, and I finished my exam to get out of the classroom by 7:30, and home just shortly after eight. My wife was putting my daughter to sleep, so I munched on some carrots and went through my pre-run routine, choosing Junkie XL’s Everything Everything album to listen to.

Running the internet

Since I started my new-found hobby/torture combo, and have created this blog, I’ve also spent time looking around the web a bit at other people who blog and run, hoping to maybe find a community of like-minded individuals out there. The extroverted runner so to speak, or maybe just the overly-nerdy word-smith runner, or perhaps even more likely, the techie-runner who needs accountability in electronic form. I think the last probably defines me most accurately. Interestingly enough, it seems there are a fair amount of others who are starting along this same path, thought mostly female. Where are all the dudes? As another aside, there seems to be a LOT of food/running combo blogs.

We all hear stories in the states about the generally abysmal reality of the health of our fellow citizens, and how the youth especially are suffering from obesity. In counter-argument, I start look out at the vast interwebs for other runners, and my vision becomes crowded by the diversity of persons talking about the sport. It’s a fairly compelling argument against the accepted established idea of an ever-fattening United States. So, while a segment of the population may be shoveling happy meals into their children’s extra-wide gullet, and sucking down a choco-banana malt from Steak-n-Shake, there are those of us who are going for a mile run and then snacking on baby carrots with lite ranch afterwards and washing it down with a bottle of water.

Week 2, Day 2: Non-stop mile

Last night was a third night in a row running for me. Shortly after getting home with my daughter from day care, my wife walked through the door after finishing her run. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this run, the day before had gone so well, that I was concerned that anything less than amazing would feel as a comparable defeat. I tried to keep in my mind, that having my run go as well as the day before would still be a victory for me. My mental battle of will with myself was starting up the second I handed my daughter off to my wife. It didn’t help that my wife expressed concern for me, she doesn’t want me to burn-out by over-running. I mollified her a bit and went about my way. A short breather, a change of clothes, and a stretch later, my feet were on the pavement again, with mixed emotions about what was ahead of me.

Week 2, Day 1: The mile

Yesterday I made the jump from a half mile to a full mile. I was fully doubling the distance I was going to be running. Proportionally, it will be the biggest increase I ever face, as the plan is to push up the distance by a half-mile every week, and to run at least three times a week, with an attempt at five.

In my head, this was going to be a brutal experience. I expected my calves to tighten up into knots, and refuse to allow my feet to rotate, my lungs were sure to be sliced to razors as they protested the ridiculous treatment I was putting on them.  The experience was going to be miserable, and dread was creeping its way into my consciousness as the day progressed closer to my run-time.  I’m slowly beginning to realize that the mental battle of running is a huge aspect of what it is I’m setting out to do. I’ve been out of shape for so long, and my reality has been one of laziness and non-exercise, that my mind revolts at the idea of doing something like this. My psyche is particularly fearful of running, as that has alway been the biggest physical challenge for me.

The footrace begins

Run? Nah, I'll just stay here and catch some "Z's"!

For a good while now, I’ve been feeling an itch to do something active. There’s been this incessant and impossible to ignore buzz in the back of my head that I should do something significant. I’m sure there’s a host of reasons for it. I’ll be 30 next year, I’ve just dropped a lot of weight after doing a massive overhaul of my diet along with my wife, my daughter and first child is turning 1 in a little over a month, and I’m finally finishing my AA at school. There are a lot of different little and not-so-little things all converging on a point in my life, and my subconscious’ response is MOVE.

So, I’m going to run. Not just any run, I’m going to train for a marathon.