I'm Not 'Born to Run'

   

Friends GIF from Potter Wars Blog

     Despite my best efforts, I will never enjoy running. My dad has been a lifelong runner. There's been talk of runner's high, which makes me question if the people talking about are indeed, high on something. It's just not in my bones. I feel that the only times it is appropriate to run are when chasing public transportation, fleeing an emergency situation, or during a zombie Apocalypse.

     It may seem peculiar to hear that I just finished my 2nd 5K race. Why? It's very simple. While I'm not a runner, I like achieving goals. I spent the last half of last year on a severely curbed workout plan, struggling through yoga classes and physical therapy to strengthen my neck. As my PT sessions wrapped up in early December, I hoped I could try exercising like a normal person again. It began with signing up with friends for a March 5K race. It was a solid 3.5 months to get my body into some sort of condition to run almost 3.5 miles. The training didn't go so well at first. After a month of holiday eating, stomach problems and a pretty serious sinus infection, I rolled into January wanting do anything but run.

The finish line! 

     But I had a goal in mind and off I went to go to the gym. I went to my work gym and my regular gym, day by day, as the weeks flew by. I worked on my mile time specifically. I knew if I had a solid time for one mile, I could keep re-applying that time to the additional miles. Occasionally, I attempted 2 miles on a weekend so my body would have a sense of how long I needed to endure. I trained with drinking lots of water, until I realized this would not be happening when I was running. I was going as light as possible. I sometimes walked as slow as 16.5 minutes for a mile. This was far worse  mile time that what I achieved during my first 5K last year. I started a calendar, marking each day with my workout achievements. It was a loose schedule, alternating days of running type exercise and more gently recovery exercises. An average week looked like :

• Pilates on Monday
• Yoga on Tuesday
• Treadmill/Chiropractor or massage appointments on Wednesday or Thursday, 
• Back to the treadmill on  Friday or Saturday
• Sunday was yoga and an occasional  10-15 minutes on the treadmill if I felt up to it. 

     Training was hard. I went through a lot of days of pain. It was too cold for me to go outside, except for one very warm February Saturday. I mostly toughed the pain out, relying on baths and ice packs. At this time, my stomach was healing from a too-heavy course of anti-inflammatory medicine. My neck pain returned with all types of activities from lifting a laundry basket to reaching under by bed. Still, I trained easy until the last week.

     The race day came, and it was unseasonably cold. An average of about 20 degrees with wind and light snow, that morning was the worst condition I could imagine.  I packed my fleece coat pockets with gloves, hand warmers, and tissues. My nose started running around mile 2 and I was already out of tissues. I pushed myself through the road course, up one massive hill and around several bends, but still having to rest my lungs from the extreme cold.  I was doing better than my slow walk time. As I approached the finish line, I saw my time and almost freaked out. I finished at 37 minutes and 38 seconds, and according to this nifty photo, I ran just under 12 minutes a mile on average.

     For the record, I'm still not a runner, but  I'm considering running another 5K race later this spring when the weather is much more cooperative. Who knows, there might be a bus I can chase on the way there.