Distance: 5.08k Wednesday, 12.68k Friday, 5.0k on Sunday
Time: 34:32 Wednesday, 1:29:57 on Friday, 31:59 on Sunday
I have gotten so far behind on my posts that I have had a hard time getting motivated to write, because I keep thinking it will take so long. This is why I hate procrastinating, and really don’t do it very much. I much prefer to do things at once as they come, because it seems to take less time. So, I promise to post more often, so that I don’t have to catch up. This last week has been pretty full, with a job change in the works, my longest run ever, and my new 5K PR, but I’ll start at the beginning as much as I can.
First, last Wednesday’s run. It was so much better than the one on Tuesday. It was warm and sunny, and a pleasure to be outside, although I tried a different run tracking program this time, iMapMyRun. In summary, I hated it. On the plus side, it seemed more accurate than RunKeeper, although I had to turn its own lock function on instead of just sleeping my iPhone for this accuracy. And this is where the program annoyed me to no end. I received a text message while running, which I had to shut off to keep the program running (not its fault; Apple won’t let third-party applications run in the background during a phone call, or when a text message is received until it is turned off). The program’s internal button lock feature was so good, I couldn’t unlock the damn thing and must have spent about 30 seconds pushing random buttons on my iPhone until the program screen came back on. Then, the program was still running anyway! At the end of my run, I had to spend another few seconds randomly pushing buttons to unlock the program to stop it. FYI, RunKeeper doesn’t have its own lock feature, and you just sleep the iPhone the normal way. Way easier to use, even if the accuracy is a bit off. It’s worth my sanity.
Another cool thing about Wednesday’s run was that it was the first time in over a month that my knee didn’t hurt. I read an article from Runner’s World about injury prevention, and one of the tips was to shorten your stride. I tried it and it actually worked! I also found out on Wednesday that I got a job I applied for in late February, on the postpartum ward, which is where I’ve wanted to work for years. Now I just had to wait for my bosses to give me a (hopefully) good recommendation, and find out my start date.
Then we come to Friday’s run, the longest run I’ve done yet. And it felt long. My knee started to hurt again, even though I tried to keep my stride shorter. I really wanted to get in the distance, so I told myself that it didn’t matter how long it took. That took some of the pressure off, and helped keep me motivated to finish the distance. I knew that I could walk part of it if I needed to. I just kept saying to myself, okay, let’s do this much and then I can stop and walk if I have to. Then, when I got there, I did it again. I ended up doing just over 12.5K and I only walked up one of the hills, which I’d already run up twice before. My right knee was screaming at the end of that run, although I was surprised I did it so quickly. It reminded me again that at least part of the challenge of this distance running is mental. I need to remind myself that getting the distance done is important, not speed. I can walk if I need to, and I can stop to rest if I need to (and I did take a minute to drink some Gatorade after about 7k, before finishing the rest). I just need to get the distance in. That being said, this run felt longer and more difficult than any previous run, and I’m due to go even further next week!
Finally, we get to yesterday’s run, a 5k fun run. I started getting a sore throat on Friday night, and by Saturday, I had a sore throat and stuffy nose. But, I decided to try the run anyway, since I remember reading somewhere that it’s okay to run with a cold as long as all the symptoms are from the neck up, which they were. Also, I paid $13 to run, and it seemed a shame to waste the money. Well, all of last week had been warm and sunny, but yesterday was cloudy and cool. I wore crops, but I probably should’ve worn pants. I also wore my rain jacket that’s normally too hot, but wasn’t this time! Because the start was so close to my house, I decided to run there. My knee started to hurt almost immediately, and I got tired really quickly. Not the best confidence boosters! I decided to just get the run done, and not to worry about time, given the double strikes against me of sore knee and sickness.
My first set of running “swag”:
This is where the run was located:
Me, in all my pre-running sickness:
Getting ready for the run:
I took this picture, and it’s hard to see, because the woman in the wheelchair is smoking a cigarette, and you could smell it from a mile away:
This was probably the biggest run I’ve done yet, in terms of the number of fellow runners. It was a total jam at the start, and I spent a lot of time trying to get past the power walkers and slow runners. The course itself was fun, going through a couple of local parks, so I ran on wood chips for a bit, which were nicer on my knees than pavement. And I totally surprised myself by finishing just under 32 minutes, which was a personal best for me! I thought my time was 31:54, but the official time was 31:59, two whole seconds faster than my last 5k time of 32:01. I even won a water bottle and five free passes to the local recreation center!
And now we come to today, and I think I’m all caught up. I had to buy new running shoes today because I woke up last night with the worst foot pain on my right foot I’ve ever had, and I wonder if my shoes were to blame. It was almost like a foot cramp, but standing on it made it worse, and I couldn’t bear any weight on that foot without pain that made me want to cry out. It was a bit better this morning, and actually walking around downtown today made it almost go away. I don’t know if my shoes are just getting old and less supportive (they have about 400k on them) but just in case, I got new ones. If I don’t work tomorrow, I’ll take them for a test run, and see how they do.
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Posted in Running Marathon | 
Tags: Crowded, knee injury, long run, racing, rain, RunKeeper, runners, Running
