Having missed - legitimately because of work - my scheduled run 6 days ago it was with mixed feelings I geared up this morning. I knew I wanted to run, I knew I could run but what I didn't know was how long should I run. It was a long break between running days.
I'm heading to graduate for the fourth time, over this last winter could not get any running in because of, not a Forecourt Post, working on a ship. So started from scratch again a few weeks ago.
Now I had just finished 7 days of literally only sitting or standing around a forecourt, not being able even to stroll more than forty or fifty paces in any direction - good thing the pay was worth it lol - so minimum exercise of any kind, no joke.
looked at my phone, the programme I'm doing went from two 8 minute runs with a three walk break.....to one continuous 30 minute run after the usual five minute warm up walk...
30 MINUTES??? WHAT!!!!
I'm only on Day 3 of Week 5 out of 8 weeks!!!
DANG! This programme sure as heck takes no prisoners!! Thank you my 'friend' who recommended it! Should have known better than to ask a Drill Sergeant what would work for someone like me coming back from a long break, some programme with no music, chatter or bells and whistle - 'just a bare stripped down no nonsense running app'
Dang! 
Oh well - just do your best and use your head. Monitor carefully for over worked muscles and lungs and settle, if necessary for a 16 minute continuous run, if even that.
And with that in mind, plus my experience in this running lark since that first ghastly Day One, Week One in June 2016 - I did the hardest bit of any run. From the sofa to the front door and stepping outside.
Decided to go to the Park. Hadn't run there in yonks. Hate the extended leash dog walkers, 'Pram Mammies', 'four abreast on a path designed for two' chatterboxes, rollerbladers in a world of their own weaving all over the shop, etc that constantly make you zig and zag and waste precious breath telling them to shift and make way for someone else LOL
Plus - it's boring at this point - ran it consistently for years at the beginning because the advantages are - close to my humble hovel, flat and has tenth of a mile markers.
So if I have to do such a big jump in time or anything like it - I want flat, and I don't want to walk too far to get back to hh afterwards.
Started running. Was a bit cheered by the thought that at least I would run long enough to get over those accursed 'toxic ten' minutes, and was glad also that I had heaved my carcass out the door to run.
A while later I cheered myself up with the thought that "I WIN! I WIN!!" in the 'Does anyone run as slowly as I do?" category. 
Because was I ever sloooow knocking off those tenth of a mile markers - I was indeed determined not to run too fast, but this was VEEEEEERY much slower than I thought I was even capable of, even on a not so very good day.
Two full circuits equal 1.4 miles. The running did get easier after the toxic ten (or in my case more like twelve!) and I did feel increasingly glad I had made the effort to run today. Plus - I figured I could do the thirty minutes if I really took it carefully.
So I carefully finished the run, carefully restraining myself from running just a bit further to the actual next marker because once you get the toxic ten out of your way and hit your pace the temptation we all feel is that we have a bit more left in the tank and we are a bit loath to stop....but I stopped my careful run.
1 point 5 miles in thirty minutes...
It did not seem possible to run any slower. God I was slow! Me! - who had previously with confidence knocked out sub 35 minute 5ks, sub 1h10m 10ks, sub 2h Ten Milers and even - gasp! ( and you bet your nelly I WAS gasping at the end lol) - a sub 5h30m FM!
That was the gremlins trying to get me to quit. Sooooo Slooooow today - cut it short, build up eeeeeaaasy (in other words, you never do go out again) You will NEVER get back to where you were running so take up something else - rowing or such (yeah, like that would actually happen)
BUT - years of experience overwhelmed those thoughts with one simple fact.
I like to run.
Yes - I would love to be faster, fitter, more graceful etc. I would dearly LOVE to be able to 'hold a conversation while running' but that simply is never going to happen because my lungs are so effed up it's a miracle I can run at ANY speed
So- focus on the positives.
In this very Park seven years ago I barely made it through Day One, I was in serious pain and VERY serious aerobic distress. Doing all of Day One right at the start was the most stupid thing I could have done because I was so unfit in every sense to even start the programme by running - hell I should have done it first through a 'walk slow' walk a bit faster' substitution for the actual running segments, then done it again with running.
My DREAM all through to week 5 when I first did the programme was that 'someday I might be able to run to that far marker just before that far bend in the track without having to stop'
Far marker was three tenths of a mile away
But here I am, having passed so many Markers and still going without feeling like I am going to pass out, the bones in my legs shattering and my lungs exploding through my nose....Dang it, might be seriously slow but I am RUNNING
AND - AND -what I get to do this year and am SOOOOOO looking forward to is - not the fantastic fun of the Army Ten Miler, definitely not the meatgrinder of the USMC FM, nor even the batcrap craziness of the local Thanksgiving 5k - it's that for the first time ever I get to run with family, in an iconic event
Two of my four miscreant kiddies are going to do the 'Jesse James Defeat Day' 5k in Northfield, MN in September with me Not only will I have fun with the kiddos - the race and festival and place itself are all truly amazing, a great experience I would never have if I were not a Runner
So - trundling around the Park thinking it's not important that I run fast in the JJD event - it's really great I get to run in it at all!
Buzzer goes off on phone, I have run a shade over 1.5 miles. That is certainly slow for me (not by a long shot LOL but yes, genuinely slow). I would come in under an hour in the JJDD, so not too shabby for someone in my state and age, and definitely more fun than being on the sidelines, or even worse the IC
Walking home, felt good about the run.....but FAR better about how I at long last got the gremlin of speed to shut up and I genuinely enjoyed fully the run more than any run I ever have, seriously.
It had felt like being a kid again - running for fun - not some self imposed not really clear 'target'.
I read in some article we should run like wee kids - they just run to run, no thoughts of times or distances. And they always have a genuine smile when they do. It's the truth
HOWEVER - nothing is ever so simple in adult life is it
I checked my phone to see what the next segment brings, and decided to write the above as a result.
You see, my dear VRB's, in my half asleep mode this morning getting ready to run I misread the screen.
It was NOT a case of 'walk 5 minutes, run thirty, walk 5"
It was ' Today we up to thirty minutes total with one run of twenty minutes. Thirty minutes might seem like a big leap from last time however blah blah blah blah"
I just registered 'one run' and 'thirty minutes' LOL LOL LOL
So - 1.5miles in 20m is not that shabby for me after all I must definitely have reserves of fitness I did not comprehend before
The HUGE lesson I have learned though is this, and writing all this because maybe it will be helpful to others, as others who post are constantly helpful to me...
If I had known it was a 20 minute run, my attitude would have been 'oh well'.
Instead, when I had given up lofty expectations, released the pressure of 'must do VERY well' from myself....started running and just ran....it went from a sense of resignation to pure unadultrated enjoyment.
35 minutes or an hour plus whatever - doesn't matter in 5k or any run from now on for me. only 'point' in running for me now in running is to Run.
Wishing you all many happy miles in your future : )
B210K Week 3 Run 1 in the bag in style - and I think it may be time to part company with the lovely Samantha...
W6R2 - In the bag ...
W9r3 Graduation!
I did it!!!!
