Running for two--or, mostly walking

2 miles with Bethany on the Planet Run (not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow when I need 2.5, since I'm not all that creative). An awesome run and I owe it all to her! We ran > 1.5 miles without walking, then only took one walk break and finished it off. I felt pretty good and probably only stopped to walk because I felt like I should have to stop. I'm not going to say for sure that I could have gone the full two miles without walking, but I might have gone a little further if I wasn't second-guessing myself.

Confession: I use humor to protect myself from getting hurt. I know, for anybody who has ever talked to me it's a real news-flash, but sometimes you have to say things even if everybody else already knows them. Anyway, it was good today for me to get real with Bethany and tell her about some of the junk in my past. That junk, while not pretty, helped to make me who I am today. It's just as much a part of me as any of the good stuff. So, thanks, Bethany, for listening. If you ever want to tell me about your junk, I'm all ears.

I got new glasses today, so I was slightly disoriented. I wasn't tripping over stuff or anything, but I am able to see things that I couldn't earlier today, so that's always a little weird. I suppose I'll have to get a picture up on my blog at some point so that people can see the new me.

I was feeling pretty good after blogging, so I ran the dog .5 instead of walking him. A little knee pain, but half a mile is pretty easy now.  Does that count as a 2-a-day?  There was only about an hour between my runs.  Yep, I'm hardcore.

2.5 miles with Bethany and Marci and (surprise!) it wasn't on the Planet Walk.  Really nice run at still a pretty slow pace (I know they could leave me in their dust, but they're just too nice to do it).  The big news for me: only one walking break (due to the slow pace).  I felt like I could have gone the whole time without walking, but we all just started walking at one point for about 30 seconds and then went, "Oh, we didn't mean to do that."  We couldn't get any satellites the whole run, so no time from the Garmin (dang!).

I've been thinking about my shoes.  I really like the ones that I'm running in (New Balance 408s).  They are really comfortable.  I have some old New Balance 717s that I wear to work that are really uncomfortable.  In fact, before I changed to run today, I thought I was having some serious knee and ankle pain, but when I took those old shoes off they instantly felt better.  I'm not sure why, but some observations that I made were that 1.) old shoes are bad even if you aren't running in them and 2.) the 717s have more support than the 408s, but the 408s are way more comfortable even for walking (possibly because of the age of the 717s, but possibly because I don't need a stability shoe?).

I'm thinking that maybe I should look for a winter 5k somewhere, but I really hate running in the cold / on ice.  Maybe there will be a Turkey Trot while we're in Indiana for Thanksgiving (Paul?).  I'm not sure that I will be ready by then, but if I had something to work towards, then I might push myself a little harder.  If not then, I might have to do one of the Striders races.  We'll see.

Ran from home today with my companion, Dustin Kensrue (his album "Please Come Home" is awesome!) and immediately felt the effects that all the running has had on my knees.  My pace was slow, even for me (13:30 pace, yikes!), due to the pain.  It wasn't pain like I hurt myself or anything like that.  It was more like the pain I felt after running/hiking down the Kaibab Trail.  I can't wait for my body to adjust to the pounding.  I'm slow because I can't breathe, but I'm slower because my body isn't used to running yet.  Some day.

 So, I've been thinking about my plan.  Not my immediate plan for the next two weeks, but my long-term running plan.  This is what I was thinking: I want to get up to a certain mileage and then sit on it for a while and work on my speed.  Then, once I get a little faster, I will start doing more mileage.  I don't think I'll ever do more than about 6 miles at a time, but I'd like for that 6 miles to take closer to 1:00 than 1:12.  That extra 12 minutes does make a difference.  Anyway, I talked it over with Paul and he thought that was wise.  It'll probably take me a while to get to that point, but I'll guarantee that y'all will know when I do.
 

Woke up this morning thinking that my knees and ankles were feeling better from a good night's sleep.  Then I stood up.  I wish it was muscle pain.  Muscle pain I can handle.  With muscle pain you hydrate, you stretch, you massage, you work through it and you get stronger.  However, this is joint pain that only occurs when I am standing/walking/running.  I'm hobbling and it's really kind of annoying.  I almost fell down this morning when I started down the back steps and wasn't holding on to the railing (or, actually, since there isn't a railing, I wasn't leaning on the wall).

So, because of the pain I decided that my body probably needed another rest day.  I'm going to take today off, do some stretching, some massage, some rest and hopefully be back at it tomorrow.  If I'm still hurting tomorrow, I'll probably go out and just do a shorter distance than what is scheduled so that I don't lose what little fitness I have already gained.  Well, that's the plan, anyway.  If the pain keeps up for too long while I'm running, I might have to get a gym membership and just do the elliptical for a while.  We'll see.

So, it's official.  I'm a big baby and I can't handle a little joint pain.  I know, wah!  In my defense, I basically went from sitting on my booty to running 2 miles a day and my body just isn't used to the pounding.  So, I have a new plan, which, if all goes well, still includes running the Moab 5 miler in March.

 The new plan looks something like this (without the specifics because I don't have it on paper yet):  I'll take the rest of the weekend off (and suffer the consequences of taking three days off), then join the gym on Monday.  I'll do some elliptical/recumbent and some lower body/core work in order to strengthen my running muscles.  I plan to do one of two things: 1.) take a few weeks off of running and just hit the gym, then start rotating in some running again; or, 2.) hit the gym a few days a week and still maintain a couple days running.  They're pretty similar, so I'll probably just find out what Paul suggests and go with that.

I'm pretty bummed, though, because if I stop running, then I'm really going to miss Bethany and Marci.  We might just have to get together for some yoga instead.  Also, I have a habit of starting up a new activity, being really into it for a while, then dropping it when something goes wrong or I move on to something else.  I really don't want to do that this time because I'm actually enjoying running this time (I know, alert the press!).  So, once again, I'm glad I have the blog to keep me accountable.  I hope it works.