I ran this morning. I got onto the treadmill (it's dark and very cold at 5:45, so it's treadmill time) and I ran. For the first time in a very long time I ran for a 15 whole minutes without feeling like I was going to collapse. Recently even running three minutes was pushing it. I have felt like there was no oxygen in my muscles ( which, due to
anemia, there wasn't and they responded as such). So this morning, I got onto the treadmill planning to do
5:1 intervals. I love intervals! They got me through my first half marathon, so I have a huge loyalty to them. But today, when I got to 5 minutes, I felt no need to stop. The point of intervals is to stop before you feel a need to stop, so you have as much energy at the end of the run as you did at the beginning. So in theory I should have stopped. But I wanted to see if I could make it to a mile. I haven't run a mile willingly in a very, very long time. Guess what? I made it to a mile. ME!! I made it to a mile and I felt really good, so I kept going. I made it to 15 minutes and for the most part I felt great and wanted to keep going, but a nasty stitch in my right side insisted that I walk a bit. So I walked for two minutes and finished out to two miles.
This is huge for me. Now I need to look at some races and make some strategies for myself. My first goal is to complete a 5k without walking, if not the full 5k then maybe walking at distance breaks rather than time breaks. I'm going to play with it. There is a piece of me that felt like a runner today. I got it today. I got how people can go out and just run and enjoy it. I've never gotten that before. It's a whole new running life for me, I think.
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| already looking forward to running this race again |
