Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Finally!

Hello again! I know I sorta dropped off the face of the blogging world for a week and some days. There are a few reasons for this, some which are good and some which aren't as good. The good news: I got a job, yay! I have a new job working at a veterinary office, which will help me make ends meet until I go to grad school in the fall. So, I'm still figuring out what my schedule looks like and readjusting to the working world again. The bad news is that I also haven't run in the last week and a few days. :( Some of this is related to my new job and figuring out when in the world I can run now. The other part of it is that I seemed to go through some sort of post-race running blues where I couldn't bring myself to run. I'm not really quite sure why, or if this is overly common. I just didn't have much motivation after my 5k race.

Eventually, over the past few days I've noticed the runners on sidewalks when I drive home and I've started to feel the push to get back out there. I wasn't sure what kind of momentum I lost by stopping for so long, but I knew that if I wanted any shot of running the 6.8 miles I need to in less than 3 weeks, I needed to get going. So, my co-workers told me of this nice, but hilly, 1 mile loop at a community college down the road from work and I decided to head out that way once my shift was over today. The sun was just starting to set, so it was nice and cool outside. I decided that instead of running to music, which I've learned the playlist so I focus on how many more songs I still need to run through, I played the podcast of the ever fabulous This American Life. I started off with my five minute warmup, and then took off. The first lap wasn't that bad, and I didn't even realize I had gone a mile until I crossed in front of my car again. Not feeling too winded, I decided to keep running and see how far I could go. The second lap was a little harder, but people I had passed earlier smiled at me when I passed them again, and it gave me momentum to keep going. When I passed my car the second time (now running for over 22 minutes, which is the longest I had run continuously prior), I knew that if I could make it around again, I would finally have run a 5k straight. I kept running and listening to Ira Glass and eventually my Ipod told me I had 400 meters left. 400 meters and I would have ran for over 30 minutes straight! I quicken my pace and practically danced when my ipod told me I had ran a 5k!!! I've FINALLY gotten over the mental block of stopping around 15ish minutes and thinking I can't go further. Now, I want to get back out there on Friday and prove to myself that isn't a fluke that I was able to run that long today. Hopefully, I can then up my mileage a bit before my race in October. So, all in all, today was a great running day. :)

Here's to being back on my game!

2 comments:

SuperDave said...

WOOHOO! Great job!
Work,life, and stuff always gets in the way - at least for me.

Amy S. said...

Way to go, glad you got back in the game. And congratulations on getting a new job. I'm jealous that you get to work with animals all day. Keep up the great work.