"There's only one hard and fast rule in running: sometimes you have to run one hard and fast."








Friday, September 3, 2010

Day one of starting over... again

I came up with some vague idea of a goal I'd like to attain in running, now that gnomish geezer decrepitude has set in and then I started doing what I enjoy: obsessing over details of how to get there. I found myself saying I had to do this and I had to do that and I really needed to work on these things... when common sense struck.

What I needed to do is stop thinking about it and actually go out and run.

I can't go far without pain, I can't go fast without pain, but I can do more than sit and complain about it. The plan is to do what I hate - run twice a day - because I can do it. Fifty minutes, twice a day, and I'd be doing more than 70 miles per week (and doing a lot of laundry, as well).

I went out and ran 6 miles in 51 minutes last night. I got pelted with nickel-sized hail in the last mile, which just goes to prove that NOTHING - EVER - is going to be easy.

This morning, I woke up sneezing, with a runny nose, so I took an antihistamine and dragged my poor drugged-into-somnambulation body out the door and did 5 miles in 50 minutes, shuffling on tiptoe the first mile as the stiffness in my achilles tendons slowly lifted.

Day one is in the books.

6 comments:

Mike Russell said...

You are on tough sucker. What a smart way to engineer around the problem -- two a day workouts.

PiccolaPineCone said...

i cut my laundry down by half this year by wearing each running outfit for 2-3 runs before washing. after running i would hang on the line until dry and then re-use. i didn't make any friends but i did way less laundry.

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Well, day one down and many more to come, right?

I wish I could do what PiccolaPineCone does but Teh 'Bride won't even let me put my post-run clothes in the hamper - I have to toss them straight down into the basement so Teh Stink doesn't asphyxiate anyone.

You can consider yourself tagged. I don't usually do these things either, but I guess with this one it just gave me the excuse I needed to write about Frank.

And I didn't see NeilZ's tag till this morning, just as I was about to go for my run. Upshot - wrote that post instead of running today.

And YOU ran twice today. So it sounds like a good start to me; but if you start gauging your progress using mine as a yardstick ... well, then, you're REALLY deep in the ca-ca.

sea legs girl said...

Why run twice a day if you hate it?

Ross said...

I'm with SLG. That doesn't sound very sustainable.

mizuno wave said...

I had fun reading your blog! :)