Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Day 6 (8/2): 3.1 miles / 30:39

The craziest thing about this 5k was that it wasn’t even intentional. I chose a route that I didn’t know the distance of and figured I’d drive it later to see how far I’d gone. Turns out it will be a great route for me to run to prepare for the Kiwanis 5k!

Oh, and maybe you’ve noticed the slightly more precise time. That’s right… someone got an actual watch! I’ve been upgraded to a real thing by my wonderful husband. It’s either his way of encouraging me or he just thinks it’s sad that I was previously using my cell phone. Either way, I’ll take it.

This watch, however, is a bit of a distraction for me. I check it far too frequently. For example, when I checked it during today’s run, these were the first few readings: 0:34, 1:48 and 2:37. The first half of my run was difficult, but I eventually stopped obsessing about it and only looked at it a few more times after that.

When I started out today, I wasn’t sure how far I was going to go. I had a pretty good idea of the distance of some routes, so I knew I’d be adding a little on to one that I’ve done several times. What I wasn’t sure about was if I was going to add on another mile to the end. I really need to make that decision at the beginning next time. My pace was perfect for the first leg and I felt pretty good, so I was determined to add that last mile. Once I made the commitment, I almost immediately regretted it. With sweat in my eyes and my lungs burning, I pressed on. Of course, when I most want it, I can’t find a single person watering their grass at this time of the day… at least not the area surrounding the sidewalk. I figure it’s best not to go frolicking through the neighbors’ yards since a lot of them are outside. Not that what I was doing could, in any way, be confused for ‘frolicking’.

As I round the corner to the last half mile stretch, the feeling suddenly hits me… nausea… that awful sick feeling I haven’t felt in years… the sign of a great workout. There was a time in high school when I would have simply let it go and hoped to not get anything on my own shoes. I’m far too vain these days and refuse to let the neighbors see me vomiting in their tree lawns. But, the only way to avoid that is to slow down. I promise myself that, no matter what, I will not walk and I somehow manage to work my way through it enough to again pick up my pace for a big finish. And it’s a good thing… my husband was in the driveway and I’d hate for him to see me slacking off on my training. Especially now that I have this fancy new watch on my wrist.

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