I haven’t written since Monday, even though I ran home on Thursday and I didn’t even forget my Garmin. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t easy and it hurt like hell. I don’t know why it should be easier for me to write about the easy runs, the uneventful runs, the runs that all blend together, but I find it harder to talk about those runs that tell me the most about where I am right now and what I need to focus on to get where I need to go.
It was raining on Wednesday. After Zumba on Tuesday night I might not have been particularly enthused about the thought of running home in any case, but when I heard the rain pelting down on Wednesday morning, that was definitely the clincher. I get in the habit of thinking that I’m fit and I can handle pretty much anything, but every now and then I overdo it and really notice it the next day, or even the day after the next. I had a great workout at Zumba, but even now I have some residual twinges in my legs and my arms. So I took Wednesday off.
Thursday was fine, a wee bit warm, even. The only thing that I thought might be an issue was that I could barely walk, let alone run. Wednesday, I hurt a bit. Thursday, I ached all over and my inner thighs were so tight I felt myself walking like a penguin most of the day with my feet turned out. I assumed that after half a kilometre things would stretch themselves out and I’d be fine, but I didn’t anticipate being in ABSOLUTE AGONY most of the way. My back was dripping with sweat, my shoulders screaming from the weight of my fully laden pack. I felt like I was going to snap a tendon any moment. The run took a couple of minutes longer than usual, which actually doesn’t sound all that bad in retrospect. Given how terrifying the entire run was, I would have expected five minutes longer, so I should be happy with two, given the repeated walk breaks and extended interlude when I tried to find appropriate music on my iPod. At the time I thought it was vital and necessary to stop and walk to find some music. I know I wasn’t fooling anyone.
What does this run teach me? Maybe I should be stretching a little more carefully after Zumba. Maybe I should have run Wednesday, to prevent everything tightening up. Maybe I didn’t refuel properly. There’s a lot of things I can infer from Thursday’s scary and unpleasant experience. I know I have to expect these sorts of things occasionally.
Tomorrow morning, it will probably still be raining. But I’ll get up, I’ll gear up, and I’ll go for a 20 kilometre run. Whether I will manage to complete it remains to be seen, but I’m going to try my best not to let one bad run get me down.
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