Monday, February 2, 2015

Run Six: Not awesome.

I painted one of my running shoes. Because obsession is like that sometimes.
(c) Sara Rabe, 2015, gouache on paper
I did run six at lunch at work today -- the weather at lunch was merely unpleasant (mid-30s F and wet), when we get home it will be pretty brutal (wind chill around 18 F and winds around 20 miles an hour sustained). I did this with Run Three last week and it worked out just fine, but today not so much.

I was scared and worried  before I went out. Anxious. My heart was racing before I even put on my running shoes. It wasn't that I didn't want to go, exactly. I was just scared of what would happen.

Let me be clear - I work in a heavily travelled and well patrolled part of Annapolis and knew I was going to be running in the middle of the day in the heart of that well patrolled and travelled area. I wasn't scared about my personal safety.

As far as I can tell, I was scared of it not going well. There was some niggling worry that if I didn't go out there and cruise through my goals for the run (which should have been a total softball) Something Bad would happen. Something Bad maybe in the form of losing my motivation to do my next run and the run after that and so on.

Possibly because of fears just like this I have a history of peaking early and low in physical activities -- I took a Tae Kwon Do class in college and got praise for how well I did a particular sort of roll in the second and I never did anything in the class as well again. Not even that roll. I quit after a couple more classes because I was so frustrated.

Anyway, despite being scared of going out there and failing and Something Bad happening, I tied on my shoes and went anyway.

It wasn't a great run. My calves were cramping from before the mid-point on (I'd been feeling so good, I've been slacking on stretching and massaging them). I got horribly winded in the first run (up a little bit of a hill) and never really recovered. My shins were (and are still) a little hurty. And it just didn't feel good.


My goal for the run was to run all 90-seconds of four of the six running intervals and at least sixty seconds of the other two. I did not make my goal. (First time for that, darn it.) I ran all 90 seconds of one, almost all 90 seconds of another, at least sixty seconds of what must be three and completely wimped out on one because my calves were so crampy. I kept moving the whole time, but I didn't run nearly as well or as much as I wanted to.

So now it's on me to avoid Something Bad happening. I'm not going to give up because of one unsatisfying run, for heaven's sake.

My next run is scheduled for Wednesday. I'm going to take a step back in my goals for the run and go for: Run all of at least two of the 90 second intervals and at least 60 seconds of the rest. But mainly, just get out there and go for a run.

Small note on the painting: Drawing and painting are what I do in the evenings when I'm not running. The colors on the painting are pretty accurate but the proportions are off (I really do have toes). I'm sure I'll be drawing my running gear again. And as all the gear I have at this point are my shoes, some socks, and the massaging roller ball, it'll probably be the shoes.

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