Folly or Feasible?

Much to my surprise, I had a decent run today (W8D3) despite some sub-optimal conditions.

Friday night was football opening season, and we had friends over before the game and a late night of celebrating after. I spend 12+ hours on a pool deck watching water polo on Saturday. Amazing how exhausting cheering can be… I did, however, get a chance to try my first PowerBar, and my son grabbed me a packet of gel to try later.

Today I was still tired and it was storming outside. I knew I had to go, though, so when the rain tapered off I put on my clothes and went.

And then it started to rain again.

The drops felt good, chilly on my sweaty skin, but I have a well-known aversion to water splashing on or sliding down my face. I could take a shower with a full face of Tammy Fay make-up and come up without a smear. So I’ve dreaded the day I had to go out in the rain, and today was it.

Despite having low-energy and high-aggravation, I did a total of 3.1 miles, 2.6 of it running. It was a slow run, my slowest yet at 15:03 per mile, but it’s what I needed to do to keep going. It wasn’t easy, but there were definite periods where it wasn’t hard, where my mind wasn’t constantly having to keep my body focused on moving, where I was just going along, possibly actually enjoying it. It wasn’t a high percentage of the run, to be sure, but it was definitely there.

After three days off and lots of ice on, I went out for a run tonight. My only goal was to go out and run. Speed, time, distance … no goals, just run. I took an easy 2-mile loop, and ran 1.65 miles of it at a 13:19 pace. It didn’t feel that fast, and I didn’t feel that strained until the last little bit, so I’m satisfied.

I’m still having an issue with something behind my right knee. It doesn’t affect the running, but the running no doubt affects it. Not sure what I’ll be doing about that, but this bag of frozen peas is getting quite a workout of its own.

It’s been weird deliberately not running (versus staying in bed thinking about how I ought to be running). I feel “behind”, now … this was supposed to be Week 8 and I should be headed into Week 9. Since I named my run last Sunday W7Day 4, I’ve now re-named it Week 8 Day 1. Which means tonight was D2, and I can run on Saturday and complete my week “on time”. Not that it really matters, but mental games have gotten me this far, why quit now?

And I realized that I’m just 10 days from my 10K. That sure snuck up on me!

Dear KBT,

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Co-signed,
Your knees & Your shins

It doesn’t help that in addition to doing the longer runs, I’ve been doing them along a route that requires me to run on the sidewalk instead of the road. I used to grouse about runners not using the perfectly good sidewalk right next to them, but now I understand!

When I started Sunday I was feeling an exhaustion deeper than just sore muscles and had decided to abandon my every-other-day plan in favor of listening to my body when it was begging for rest. Apparently my body didn’t get the memo from my mind, causing it to stage a revolt. My right shin, which has been niggling at me for a couple of runs, started complaining a bit louder. That, however, was nothing in relation to my right knee, which has twinged with almost every movement and particular abhors stairs.

I’ve spent lots of time icing both; frozen peas are my friend.

The plan for now is to lay low until Wednesday morning, and do 28 and not a minute more. I’m still deathly afraid that every bit of conditioning, muscles and desire I’ve developed over the past seven weeks will suddenly dissipate if I go more than 48 hours, but common sense has to trump irrational fears. Sometimes.

The run itself was great. I ran my W7D3 route in reverse. Hey, what a concept! Start with the flat so you aren’t worn out halfway through… I’m not sure , though, how there could be so many uphills toward the end, where I’d been running hills last time — how can it be uphill both ways?!?!

Mostly, though, it was great because it was ten degrees cooler than the coolest day I’ve had yet. I do so love the low 60’s. I got to sleep relatively late, run in the sun and yet not sweat like a slurpee. No wonder I was able to keep going.

A (temporarily) bum knee is a small price to pay for finally feeling some joy in this running thing.

My last five runs:

For once, my worst run was on a Day 3, rather than a Day 2. As usual, though, it was a run I did in the afternoon because I didn’t go out in the morning as I’d planned. Smart enough to see the pattern; not smart enough to get out of bed and get it done.

I’d picked a long route, but it didn’t seem overly ambitious. I’d leave the neighborhood toward a side road, then take that to the main road, which was a long-flat stretch, with a nice downhill section leading back home.

Seemed like a good idea. At the time.

I remembered the one hill. Somehow had conveniently blocked out all the others. By the time I reached the stoplight to the main road I was worn out, and the short break waiting on the light just killed all my momentum. I’d run 19+ minutes to that point and did another 4 after, but then the walking began. It was back to the intervals, as my mind kept saying to run while my body kept digging in its heels.

Be it walking or running, the only real descriptor of that last mile would be “shuffling”. At one point I looked up and saw a sign with “Come join us” in black plastic letters. Forgetting where I was, hoping, no doubt, I was farther along, all I could think was, That’s not a good message for a funeral home. Oh wait.

I was almost to the downhill. When you almost stop running on the downhill you know it’s bad. But as soon as I crossed back to the neighborhood it would be time for the cool-down, and my son had promised to make me a protein shake when I got home.

Despite being dark, it was still hot and humid, so the idea of a cold fruit smoothie made that last third of a mile tolerable.

“It’s in the fridge,” he said as soon as I stumbled through the door.

I did my laps through the den/kitchen/dining room, gulping down water, then stopped in front of the fridge, strawberry delight calling my name.

“I made you apple-cinnamon.”

Well bless his heart.

I tried to drink it, really I did. The protein powder hadn’t mixed well, giving it the look, texture and, no doubt, taste of cinnamon-flavored wallpaper paste. I choked down what I could, surreptitiously dumped out the rest, thanked him profusely and suggested that he not make that particular blend again.

A crappy ending to a crappy run.

I had a great run this morning, and I don’t have the stats to prove it. Grrrr.

Instead of hitting "lap” on my Garmin when I started running, I hit stop. I didn’t realize it until … awhile … later when I snuck a peek at the pace, which I hardly ever do, and noticed that the time reader wasn’t changing. Turned it back on but now it’s played “connect the dots” and the mileage is off.

However, I mapped the distance and I ran 2.4 miles. Wow. WOW! The few times I glanced at the pace it was in the 13mm range; my normal average tends to be around 14:10, so I’m just gonna call it 14, which means I ran for about 34 minutes. After that the Garmin stats kick in, so I walked for two minutes (that was up a hill when my inner 3-year-old took over) and then ran another five to show the 3-year-old who’s boss.

FORTY minutes of running. Seven weeks ago I wanted to die every 60 second interval and today I ran for 40 minutes, give or take.

I didn’t really need the Garmin to tell me I rocked it today.

More like 10 minutes in hell. That’s how long it takes me to warm up enough for a run to move from wretched to tolerable.

Every. Single. Run.

Clearly the 5K is never going to be my distance. (I have a distance? What an odd concept. I’m still adjusting to the fact that I’m running, still don’t consider myself “a runner”, and yet here I am quite willing to disavow a particular distance.

At least now that the intervals are over I can get into a groove and get past the 10-minute-mark without having to stop and start all over again, but that’s still a third of my run right now during which I’m supremely miserable, as opposed to just marginally miserable.

I suppose when I get to doing longer runs, 10 minutes will be but a small percentage, but when I spend the first 10 minutes of any given workout swearing off running, why would I ever want to do longer runs?

Hello, Week 7.
Bye-bye, intervals.

I decided to make my own playlist since week 7 doesn’t require start/stop cues anymore. I’ve enjoyed a lot of the music from a variety of podcasts over the past six weeks, but I want something to which I can consistently sing along. (If only in my head. Not quite to the singing out loud while I run stage yet. . .)

Rather than just throw together a bunch of songs I like, I tried to put together a tempo-based playlist. Since I don’t really know my tempo, though — and was entirely too lazy to get my tush off the couch to go out and run enough to measure it (hey! it wasn’t a run day!) — I went with the advice of The Best Songs website.

Because, you know, they’re the best.
Because they say so, that’s how.

They suggest that jogging songs range from 135 to 155 beats per minute. Some simple internet searching gave me the bpm of various songs on my iPod, and I put together a playlist of some of my boppier, bouncier tunes that make me feel like moving.

My playlist for Day 1:

The running time actually adds up to almost 28 minutes. I was pretty much giving myself permission to quit early (‘cause I’m like that), but I ended up running not only through all of that song but also most of Come On Eileen, for a total of 33 minutes (I’m not usually like that). In my defense, shortly after Womanizer started I reached a long downhill slope toward home. At the bottom I had to cross the street, so I made a deal with myself that if I had to wait for the light then I could stop.

Damn light turned green just as I got there.

It felt the most natural running to We Didn’t Start the Fire, like my foot was hitting exactly on the beat. Not sure I could have started there, but for Day 2 I’ll build to that faster and have more songs in that range.

My goal from here on out is to run every other day, rather than just three per week, and to do the minimum required on any given day. If I feel like running more I will (because heck knows I won’t feel like running enough much more to cause any permanent damage or make me late for work), but I fully reserve the right to screech to a halt like Wile E. Coyote trying to not to go over the edge of a cliff the second I reach the designated time.

Here’s hoping Day 2 goes as well as Day 1.

Karma clearly didn’t appreciate me whining that the thrill of just completing each day is gone and smacked me upside the head with that failed run W6D2. So I took nothing for granted planning Day 3.

Psychologically, Day 2 took more out of me than I would have expected. I’ve had very linear progress so far, and it hadn’t occurred to me at this point that I wouldn’t be able to complete a run. Hate it, yes. Struggle through it, sure. But just not be able to finish it? Not on my radar.

Until I didn’t.

Thursday was a rest day. It was also a long damn day at work. I got home at 9:30, exhausted, the sum total of my daily nutrition being four soy lattes, a movie-theater size box of Dots and 2 packs of peanut butter crackers. Not setting myself up for a good run on Friday, if I could even drag myself out of bed to do it, which I couldn’t. Came home not as late but just as exhausted. Two-day break it is, then.

Saturday I was full of excuses, reasons why I shouldn’t — couldn’t, even — do Day 3. I didn’t even want to try, which was when I knew it was more than my usual exercise-aversion, because I’ve generally looked forward to moving through the weeks.

I may have become blasé about the successes I was having, but clearly they still mean more to me than I realized. I didn’t plan to repeat Day 2, considering it a collection of circumstances rather than an indication of readiness, but I really didn’t want to fail twice in a row. Old thought patterns die hard, and 5+ weeks of successes were quickly overshadowed by one bad run. One run which now defined me and reminded me that of course I couldn’t do this. I never liked running, never was good at it, what was I thinking thinking I could do this? Clearly I couldn’t. The proof was right there in Day 2.

So I had a choice. Stay in bed, put it off ‘til Sunday when I would have a fresh set of excuses and forget the running, forget the blog, forget the progress. Or go out and run.

Not quite as simple as it sounds, because if I went out and ran with the express purposes of proving to myself that I could and I failed again, well, that was gonna be ugly. I’d rather simply suspect I was right than know it for sure.

Except that at some point while this internal debate was raging, as I was trying hard to explain to myself that staying in bed and catching up on some much needed sleep was the best use of my day, I got up and put on my running clothes.

While I was telling myself that I’d still been living on caffeine and sugar with nary a drop of water consumed and how miserable would that make me, I was downloading a new podcast. Tying my shoes as I thought about how much hotter it’d gotten since I wasted those early dawn hours.

And walking out the door, one hideously failed run behind me, facing the 25 minutes of Week 6 Day 3.

I rocked it. Go, me. I did a few things differently, some based on lessons learned and some on nothing more than superstition.

I resisted temptation to return to the flat neighborhood that has served me so well on past long runs, deciding instead that I really need to be able to walk out the door and go, rather than having to drive somewhere. However, I wanted nothing to do with my usual loop, unwilling, as it were, to return to the scene of the crime. So I explored a new area and enjoyed having something new to look at. Plus one for the run.

I definitely needed a new podcast. Having recently heard of Chubby Jones I decided to give that a try. Mistake! Minus two on the day.

I enjoyed the music, liked her voice, appreciated the encouragement and chat that most others lack. Things were going great the first five minutes. Then the running began, and she started announcing how long I’d been going and how long I had left. Nooooooooooooooooooo. No, no, no, no, no, no, NO! The enjoyment, nay success, of my runs is dependent on having no clue how little time has passed and how very much time remains, be that twenty-four minutes or one. It’s torture to me. On top of which, she’d say things like, “You’ve been going for thirteen minutes, you have seventeen minutes of running left to go!”

Seventeen? Twenty-five minus thirteen is twelve in my book, and surely I’ve been running for thirty-two by now anyway, so just what are you talking about? Oh, the warm-up walk? You’re including that, seriously? That’s just cold.

Knowing how little water I’d been consuming lately I carried a water bottle with me. I did need the water for the hydration, but more importantly I needed the security blanked of knowing I had it, after being so thirsty on my last attempt. Not a fan of carrying it, but well worth it.

The most important difference between this run and the last, though, is that I slowed down. Or, to be more accurate, I ran at my regular pace rather than like a bat out of hell. When I downloaded my stats from the last run I found out that I was going entirely too fast.

(Fast, of course, is a relative term compared to “my normal speed” as opposed to, say, “Kenyans”.)

My normal running pace? Between 14 and 14:30 mm. My pace on Day 2? 12:50-ish for two intervals and 11:45 for my last aborted attempt to finish on schedule. The hell?!?! So I go out when I’m tired, it was hot, I was ill-prepared, I had the wrong podcast and I decide to run and then wonder why I failed? I honestly didn’t think I was going that fast . . .  it certainly didn’t feel that fast at the time. I guess knowing I was squeezing it in and had things to get back to made me feel like I could get it over with, although that’s pointless when the point is to run for time.

At any rate, my pace for the 25 minutes was 14:17 and it was completely doable. At one point another woman passed me and I was thinking, “One day — just not today.” By the time I turned the corner she was a speck in the distance, but I was content to still be plodding along.

Bring on Week 7.

The Venn diagram of my running misery:

Apparently, failure is an option and W6D2 be its name.

As with most of my challenging runs, this was the result of poor decision making . . . primarily a refusal to get out of bed this morning. Though I made a point to make up for it — fitting the run in between two work activities — clearly I should have just waited until tomorrow.

(Admittedly I still operate largely from fear — fear that if I deviate from the plan I won’t deviate back. Nevermind that two days off happens every week; I was more afraid of not getting up again tomorrow than I was of a sub-optimal, hot-and-humid 5 pm run.)

Knowing that I’d be doing a sun run, I made sure to drink lots of water throughout the day. I don’t carry water with me and don’t normally need it, but I was thirsty by about halfway through. And every time I’d think about how thirsty I was, my bladder made it clear that drinking more was not going to be in my best interest.

Obviously, I’d drunk a little too much water. A lot too much water. And it wanted out. Now.

It’s hard to run while crossing your legs.

Podcast be damned, I slowed to walk, a dilemma unto itself: running was a riskier proposition but walking meant it was that much longer before I got back to the safe haven of my guest bathroom. I opted for the conservative approach and tried to distract myself while keeping one eye out for a port-a-potty. All the construction in my neighborhood but danged if there was any on this street when I needed it.

The closer I got to home, the more I needed to go. I could see the cross street that was my goal, but with each step forward it seemed to recede further. I was seriously starting to wonder if I’d make it home in time. It wasn’t looking good.

It might have been okay had the coughing fit not started. I came to a dead stop, contemplated whether or not I could grab my crotch like a three-year-old and still face my neighbors at the barbecue next week. Opted to stick with the leg squeezing, awkward walk be damned. Lots of kids in the neighborhood, and I’d rather not have to register as a sex offender for lewd public behavior unless I was truly desperate.

Finally (finally) I could see my house. Only a few more yards.

Front door or back? Did I leave the front door unlocked?
Worth a shot, it’s closest to the bathroom.
Yeah, but if I didn’t then I have to backtrack off the porch and go around. Safer to just go straight for the backdoor.
And if that’s locked? It’s all the way across the house from the bathroom.
Okay, front door it is. Live dangerously.

I was now truly desperate. Squeezing is not match for an angry bladder, and I was quickly reaching the point of no return.  I stood on the porch, banging on the locked (of course) front door with one hand, the other shoved between my thighs.

Sweat or a trickle? I don’t want to know.

I finished Week 5. The run on Friday was miserable. More so even than the eighth interval on W1D1, and I really thought that was the height of misery.

I drove to the flatlands where I’d done so well last week and started my warm-up walk. My quads and calves were so tight, but I figured they’d loosen up by the time I started running.

Wrong.

I fought the urge to stop, figuring they’d soon relax, resigned to the run.

Wrong.

You’d think I’d just stop and stretch and be done with it.

You’d be wrong.

Finally, at the 15 minute mark they relented, and I even ran three extra minutes to get back to my starting point (so there), but that day was a prime example of the mental component involved. And if I hadn’t already run the 20 minutes, I probably would have quit, thinking (claiming) that I just wasn’t ready, rather than pushing through it.

I’m not known for sucking it up, for pushing myself, so I should be feeling a huge sense of accomplishment.

Wrong.

The thrill, it seems, is gone. Instead of focusing on what I can do, I’ve started thinking about what I cannot. Or am not. Either way.

I run so slowly
I’m only running, not getting to the gym in between for any other exercise.
I can’t run farther.
I hate hills, do anything to avoid them.
The blog posts in my head are not getting written.
I wish the scale would cooperate.
Scheduling gets iffy since I’ll only run early morning or late night.
I pour sweat and turn bright red when I run. (aka — I don’t look cute when I run.)
It’s still something I do, not something I enjoy.

Perhaps there is a natural let-down after successfully completing the 20-minute run, which has loomed so large for so long. If so, the timing is a double-whammy for me, since I’m in the midst of six weeks of craziness at work. Objectively I recognize how significant it is that I’ve stuck to the program despite the stress and late nights and exhaustion. Emotionally, I focus on what’s not happening, instead.

What matters, though, is that I continue to go out and complete the program. I didn’t start C25K to lose weight or to win races or to write a daily blog or to become a gym bunny. I started it to be able to run. And that’s what I do three times a week. I run longer and run further each time. I am succeeding at what I set out to do.

That’s right. I am becoming a runner.

I can’t remember which forum, which thread, which poster … I’m stressed and overwhelmed and doing very long hours at work and everything is running together right now, or I’d give credit. But to that poster in that thread on that forum — thank you.

“It doesn’t matter” is the only thing that’s kept me on track this week.

I don’t want to get up and run this morning.
It doesn’t matter. Do it anyway.

I didn’t sleep well last night and I’m tired.
It doesn’t matter. Today is your run day.

It rained last night and it’s yucky-humid out there.
It doesn’t matter. The sun is going to come out later and it’s going to be worse.

I’d rather wait and go after work.
It doesn’t matter that you’d rather wait. You know you’ll probably work late and it’d be even harder to go then.

I don’t think I have any clean capris.
It doesn’t matter. Dig one out of the basket or put on those hideous shorts …. nobody’s going to be around to see you and certainly not close enough to smell you.

I just. don’t. want. to.
And it just. doesn’t. matter. Get up and go do your run.

So I did. Week 5, Day 2 done.

Second run in a row without my Garmin. Batteries were dead again. I hope it’s just a matter of me not actually turning it off before I chuck it in the basket after downloading the data and not an actual problem with the unit. Seeing as I just threw out the box.

I’ve had a problem with the heart-rate strap for the past few runs, in that it shows an abnormally low reading for the first five minutes or so. Sure screws up an average heart-rate reading to have a bunch of 40’s in there… I probably am not wetting it enough before I start to make good contact, and I’m guessing five minutes is about the time a good layer of sweat has built up. Some Googling shows that the straps can be a little touchy anyway.

I also found a suggestion that an excellent conductor is saliva and that I should just lick it before beginning rather than running it under the faucet. Hey, why not? So that’s what I did tonight, determined to get an accurate heart-rate reading. Only to find out that I had a low battery again. Hmph.

It was a few days earlier that I’d noticed the bruise. I hadn’t thought much about it, just caught a glimpse in the mirror and made the connection to the tenderness I’d been feeling. When neither the bruise nor the tenderness subsided, I started trying to remember when I’d banged myself. I’m klutzy, so bruises aren’t uncommon.

How would you even do that? File cabinet corner? Surely you’d remember that though.

I stood in front of the mirror, arm raised, staring at the side of my breast, trying to remember, but I couldn’t think of a thing I’d done. I shrugged it off, but each time my arm brushed my side it bothered me mentally as much as physically.

Stripping off my sweaty running bra I noticed it again. In the shower I pressed against it, meaning only to gauge how tender it still was but discovering, instead, a lump.

Really? Now? Now that I’m running, now that I’m making an effort to get healthy, now I find a lump.
It’s just a lump. That doesn’t mean it’s cancer. Lots of reasons for lumps that don’t mean anything nefarious.
Duh, but you know it’ll be just my luck. I’ve got a Disney princess half marathon to run, dammit. I don’t have time for this crap.
Being a little melodramatic, aren’t we? Just go get it checked.
Uh-huh, so I can find out that much sooner that all that soy milk I’m being so good about drinking is just feeding some estrogen extravaganza going on in my boobs?
Or don’t. Just keep imagining the worst.
I don’t need to imagine. I’ve got Google and WebMD to do that for me.

At which point I promptly went downstairs and logged on to Google and WebMD.

It was either something simple or one of the truly bad boys of the breast cancer family. Like mother, like daughter. Technically, I have a family history of breast cancer. However, my mother couldn’t get something normal — no less scary or potentially lethal, to be sure, but at least understood and with known treatment protocols. No, she had to get New England Journal of Medicine quality cancer. Let’s-call-this-surgeon-in-India-because-he’s-the-last-one-who’s-seen-it cancer. You’re the lucky-number-13th case in the world cancer. And since we don’t really exactly know what it is but it might kinda sorta could be, let’s just call it breast cancer.

So yeah, I was betting on it being the bad boy.

I pretended to ignore it while I waited for the gynecologist’s office to open so I could make an appointment. It was on my to-do to finalize the registration for the Disney Princess, but I couldn’t bring myself to submit the $250 team registration fee.

It seemed too much like tempting fate.

In theory, having run 20 minutes on W4D1, the rest of Week 4 should have been a breeze. The reality? Not so much. Not hideous but still challenging.

Day 3 was fine. I paused the iPod for about a minute during the warm-up walk to ensure that I wouldn’t start my first interval going up a hill … no sense starting out with an oxygen deficit. Even though it was early, it was super humid, but I was mostly able to settle into the intervals. I was running a bit faster today than last week — I think doing the 20 minutes helped me know I can do it, so why not push a little more. Until now, I’ve never really had faith I could even get through each run, and everything was focused on just that.

I’ve realized just how difficult the stop-and-start of the intervals is once you get over being oh-so-damn-grateful that it’s time to stop running. Just as I’d get into a breathing pattern, get the legs to stop protesting, get my mind off of the fact that “I’m running now”, it would be time to walk. And, no matter how short the walk interval, the running re-entry was never a smooth transition; it was like starting from scratch.

I flirted idly with the idea of just running through them — hey, you did it the other day, you can do it now, then you can stop complaining — but those music cues might as well have been Pavlovian.

Day 2 was not as straightforward. I just couldn’t make myself get out of bed, and even though I knew it would hang over my head all day, the short-term benefit of going back to sleep won out easily.

I worked until 6:30 pm and was due at a friend’s get-together at 7:30. I tried to talk myself into running when I got back, but I knew it would be a late night with wine and there was no way I would actually run later. I’d done nothing in addition to my C25K this week and already felt guilty, so I decided to just do it and be late. This in itself was something of a triumph, and I’m proud of myself for keeping the commitment, but it also brought a different set of problems.

For starters, it’s hot as heckfire at 6:30 pm. I haven’t forgotten the misery of W2D1, when it was over-hot and I was under-fueled, and this was an almost identical situation. No time to eat or drink enough of anything that can settle, so throw on the clothes and go.

Turns out, my Garmin needed recharging. After losing precious minutes waiting for it to acquire satellites (note to Garmin: I live here. They’re going to be the same every day. Do we really have to go through this rigmarole every damn time I strap you on?), I hit the timer and figured I’d just map the route when I got home. That worked for three minutes until it officially died, becoming nothing but six more ounces to be hauling around in the heat.

I hadn’t taken the time to download a different podcast, so I was running again to Suz’s MJ mix. Which is clearly a bit subtle for me. I still wasn’t sure about the cues and had no watch, so I would check the playtime on the iPod to make sure I was on track. Except that I keep my iPod clipped to my sports bra, so in order to check the display it requires looking down my shirt to see. Which, one, I’m clutzy and end up staggering like a drunk person while trying to manage this, and two, I’m sure it looks lovely for some overweight woman to be staring down her shirt at her boobs while weaving her way down the road.

This was the first time since W1D2 running in the mountains that I quit an interval early. The last five minute run was killing me, and I started walking about three minutes in. And what was my internal dialogue leading up to this point?

You’ll have to admit this on your blog.
No you won’t, who’ll know?
Yes, you will, and you’d only be lying to yourself anyway.
Fine, admit it, shout it to the world, I don’t care, just for the love of god stop the running.

I must’ve been going faster than usual, which probably contributed to the already-sub-par circumstances, because my well-known 2 mile loop brought me home just as the last interval ended. So my options are to do five more minutes of walking back and forth near my house or go jump in the shower. Yeah, sorry cool-down walk, I’ll catch you on Day 3. Stretches? Let’s pretend they were longer than 2 seconds each, m’kay?

The run itself goes in the negative column, mostly through my own fault, but the balance tips toward the positive just for having done it.