I'm gonna start todays ramble out by stating some cold hard facts. My times for both my practice 5K's have kinda sucked, and I still have a very long way to go and a short time to get there. I know I have a LOT of hard work ahead of me. BUT for a few moments, I am gonna sit back and be proud of myself for setting a goal and working towards it. For finishing both my 5K's, and for running about half the second one. I've been eating a lot healthier. I still eat my chocolate from time to time {yesterday} but I haven't had a pop or fast food in forever! Let's be honest, I would NEVER have believed that I WOULD even attempt such things. And I am proud of how far I've come, but enough of that ~now it's back to work!!
I feel like, even if my 5K's have not been a huge successes as far as my stats are concerned, they have been very instrumental in teaching me what I need to work on:
~It's very hard for me to gage my speed, when I'm not on the tread mill, with the numbers right in front of me. It's funny, cuz on that treadmill I feel like I'm running super fast, like I'm hauling ass!! You get outside and find out that is not true, AT ALL!! You feel like you are going turtle speed, it takes forever to get anywhere.
~I don't like standing around with a bunch of athletes. I feel like people might be judging me, which is weird cuz I've never really given half a crap about what anybody thinks of me. But, you get there, in their world, and you feel like everyone is staring at the fat girl in the tight running shirt, wondering what the Hell she thinks she's gonna do!! And really what do I care what they think!! Why would it matter what they are thinking, this is about me, NOT them, so I need to get over my self-consciousness, and focus on what I'm there for.
~It's hard for me to focus my mind on the things I should be focusing on, when I'm outside. I'm not sure what this was all about but I couldn't focus on the music, I couldn't focus on my feet, and how I was running. My mind was just everywhere. And some of the time it was telling me how stupid this was, and that I couldn't go any farther.
~I learned that your body hurts in different places when you run outside. My lower back started to hurt. And my shins hurt, a lot, the next day.
~I think it might be useful to know the course in advance and if I am able, walk it, the day before.
Soooo. In an effort to try and make lemonade out of lemons. I decided it was time to take the knowledge I had gained from running these 2- 5K's, and put it to good use. I will start running outside several times per week, and try to get my issues in check!!!
Today, I went for a run outside. Not sure the whole neighborhood is thrilled about watching a fat chick and her chubby dog waddle past at 6AM but there we were. I'm sure that we've all witnessed stranger things in this 'hood!! All in all it was a pretty good walk/run, even if it was short. Gotta work out some details about where to travel that equals 3.1 miles, but for today I did 1.89miles in about 30 minutes. The time seemed to go pretty fast, which makes it official, my attention span is 30 minutes and NO longer. That means I've gotta find a way to get my race pace up to 6pmh. Along the way we saw a cute grey kitty, a bunch of deer, including a couple little bucks. And the CROWS, the wonderful crows!!! I'm not sure how many crows it takes to make it a murder of crows, {but since " A Murder of Crows" is a cool thing to say, I'm gonna say that 8 is enough to equal a murder!!} and there they were, a murder of crows {8} of them waiting in the middle of the road, just as a rounded a corner and was about to start my jog again. There they were, waiting for me!!! They all flew up to the power line and Caw'ed to me, urging me on. Telling me I could do it, that they were proud of me, that I was making great changes in my life. Well, at least that's what I believe they were doing there. Could be they smelled a heart attack waiting to happen, and they were there to pick my carcass clean after I dropped over dead. But I prefer to believe crows are awesome birds, that are there for really cool reasons. And can I just say it's been forever since I've seen the crows while walking. I saw them a lot while walking down the country roads, and when I first started at the gym, I saw one everyday for the first week, perched in the same tree, cawing to me. So today was a wonderful surprise, seeing them all on my walk/run, I've missed the crows!!! And today, for the first time, I loathed running just a little bit less!!!
I'm off to run outside again tomorrow AM...
OH and BTW, it seems I was off on the countdown. The REAL DEAL 5K is much sooner than I thought. It's now less than 5 weeks away!!! HOLY CRAP!!!
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