Day Two: When I woke up this morning, I was sore. It was amazing! I had finally been able to push through the dizziness enough to run hard enough to actually make myself sore. It felt great! (In a weird way of course.)
Since I don't work until later today, I decided to do my run after class. One of my roommates asked if it bothered me to run in the heat. I had to laugh as I told her how, in a few hours, my old team would be running in 105+ degree weather.
My run was great!!! Okay, not entirely. The first mile and a half were rough and I was feeling slightly dizzy, but not at all as bad as normal. At the turn around point, I stopped for a minute to gather myself a bit--my back was killing me. When I started running again, the heat reminded me of the XC days, and I had an incredible adrenhaline rush. I pushed even harder than yesterday and finished my 3 miles (out and back toward Wal-Mart) in 25:43 with an 8:33/mile average. Even better than yesterday! Yes, I know it's not great, especially when I look back on where I was before all this crap happened, but I am trying to just keep looking forward on what I am accomplishing now despite my health issues instead of what I accomplished when I felt okay. And honestly, an 8:33/mile average really isn't far off from what I ran before! The only difference is that today felt a hundred times harder than it did back then.
When I got back, I immediately got a little bit of water and then drank a small bottle of chocolate milk to get my blood sugar back up. This helped the recovery process a ton, I feel great right now!
Giving myself a little bit of a push and running in the heat helped me feel in touch with a part of me that I was worried was lost. Now, since I started struggling with this health stuff, I have had a few arbitrary days where I've felt great like this, so I'm trying not to raise my hopes up, but I am honestly starting to think that regaining my speed and strength despite my health problems won't be as hard as I originally thought. Today's run made me hungry for some long runs, but I know that I need to get in a week or two of consistent 3s before I start to build up some mileage. | 