Weather - 62 degrees, sunny, windy. Beautiful weather for Feb 9, I guess it makes up for the awful cold of the past 10 weeks. This was the toughest 1 mile run I have done in some time. I planned to walk a full South Farms loop today. I started at 11:30am. When I got to Crystal Lake park I stopped for 15 minutes and did 3 sets of strength exercises, then I continued on to Busey Woods. I looped around the woods then headed across town to the arboretum. I was covering ground quicker than I thought, and time was flying by, just like a long run. When I was approaching the South Farms the wind became stronger, and when I got on the road it was stiff and blew directly into me. I was starting to lose energy, so I ate the snadwich and Cliff bar I had in my pocket. When I got near the end of the road I ran 1/2 mile but my knee felt stiff , and my other leg was sore because it was not used to walking so many miles. I stopped running and found my knee was now having trouble walking. I started to get glum, I was at the furthest, remotest part of the run, the wind was relentless, I couldn't run, could barely walk, and I started to get blisters on the balls of both feet. I have not had blisters in a long time, but I guess walking uses different parts of the feet than running. My thoughts turned negative, "I'm not counting a half mile, so my streak is over", "I'm gonna stop blogging until I can run again", and "I won't be able to run until June or July". When I made the turn to head back to town the wind was at my back, my knee felt better, and I started walking faster. The blisters would remain manageable until the final half mile. I tried to throw away the negative thoughts, and decided I would try to run another half mile when I got to MBK so that I could keep my running momentum going. I did complete the final half mile run, but I decided to cut short the loop, and ended up with a 3.5 hour walk, same as yesterday. So I survived another session, just have to take it day by day and react positively to whatever circumstance brings. #451
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