The running hiatus has officially ended.
After my last race, I decided I was going to take December off from running. I'm not going to run another race until at least March, so it wouldn't kill me to not run for a while.
I was mildly annoyed and pleasantly surprised to find that after about two weeks, definitely after three weeks, I was twitchy and restless and felt like crap. Like a total slug. Which I was being a total slug. I didn't expect it to suck so much.
I was sort of holding out, trying to enforce my month off. And then I gave in. I ran one weekend. Ran with a friend one night and despite his claims of being slow and having smokers' lungs, he definitely wore me out. Ran once on another weekend. For a grand total of three runs in two weeks.
I had thought about getting out there a number of times, but I didn't really know where to go or how far or what I could handle or how fast or slow to go. Not that I didn't know this already, but the last few weeks have made it perfectly clear that I need to be on a plan, on a schedule, on a program.
I did some surfing this afternoon. Which meant I went right to all the training programs that I already have bookmarked. I flipped through a few geared toward total beginners or people that have taken time off. And all I could think was that they were too damn easy. I had been telling myself that since I'm not training for anything in particular, that I'd be willing to take it real easy and go very gradually. Basically, I wanted something to tell me to go out and run, and that it would be okay to run just a little bit.
Except I have a really hard time going out and doing anything less than 3 miles. It feels like I shouldn't even bother. I can do those 3 miles slow, but it's gotta be 3 miles.
So I settled on this, which I (mostly) did last winter. And even though I wasn't going to do Saturday's prescribed 60 minutes, I felt free to go ahead and run 3 miles (ha!) this afternoon. And it was a great run.
Why was that so hard?
The real kick in the ass is that the pants are getting a little tight. I was relieved to find while shopping yesterday that I haven't gone up a size, but still. What scares me is that even though I ran all summer and trained for two pretty big races, I still put on 10 pounds just by switching from the job where I was on my feet all day to a job where I'm usually at my desk all day. So I don't plan/expect to lose any weight this winter, but I need to not gain any more.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: The running hiatus has officially ended..
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.swirlspice.com/mt4/mt-tb.cgi/4601
Don't even TALK to me about the pants size thing. Gah. Being sick the entire month of November has totally thrown me off. It's taken me ALL of December to get back to my normal eating, water, and vitamin consumption habits.
Thank god soccer starts in a week. Because there is NOTHING like 90min of strenuous competition that your body is completely unready for to get you back into the exercise mode.
Kill me now.
Run into the New Year girl! I'll be rooting for ya and I took a look at those winter training tips. I'll be using that as well.
A
Happy New Year!!
Happy New Year Erica!
Thanks! Same to y'all! *huff*puff*
Do what feels good, is the only thing I can advise. As for me, I was unable to do my run in Olympia as the b!tch in front of me on my flight to Seattle fractured my knee. Yes, you read right. She jammed her chair into my knee, and if that's not all, constantly bounced on it, I couldn't move (even after politely telling her what she was doing) until I called an air steward over to ask him to ask her to move her chair into the upright position.
Lachlan - I will eventually email you to tell you everything we did, and didn't. I just landed this morning and am in the office. My friend's sister lives in West Seattle, right near Metro Market and funnily enough I was able to walk out of her back garden and to Blockbuster.
right near Metro Market and funnily enough I was able to walk out of her back garden and to Blockbuster -- OMG! I know where that is. Well, I don't know where it is, but I know I've seen it and that we were close by it. Crazy!
Cool! Shoot me a note, Kimberley, I can't wait to hear all about it. :)