A few weeks ago, I went to south Arkansas to visit my parents. I was so proud of myself for going for a run while I was there because the few times in my life that I’ve ever had an exercise routine, it all goes out the window when I go out of town. However, I pushed on and ran (and walked) a little over two miles in their neighborhood, which was, I imagine, very similar to running on the face of the sun. I doubt I’ll run there again until this HEAT eases up. That weekend was the first time I began noticing knee pain. Since then I’ve had pain in both knees, sort of on the front and inside the joint. It’s no fun, and it’s all the time. I hope this passes soon. If any of you are runners, I would appreciate any advice you could give, especially if this is normal for a beginner.
Trea and I have been running primarily at the park nearest to our house. It's beautiful...
...even though it has snakes.
It’s a pretty walking trail around a pond, and last weekend we took Bella with us. She hasn’t had much experience walking on a leash with so many distractions, so Trea spent the majority of our time teaching her not to tackle people. But all in all, she was pretty well behaved, and we’re going to try to take her more often.
We got too confident for a minute and decided to let her off her leash so she could splash around in the creek. We’ve had a decent amount of rain, so it was moving pretty quickly and it’s definitely too deep for us to cross without swimsuits. She promptly dove in, swam across and got out on the other side where we couldn’t get to her. I don’t have any pictures of that because I was too busy calling for her to come back. Thankfully, she jumped in and swam back to us after only a few minutes of freedom. We won’t make that mistake again, but boy, she had fun.
I ran tonight for the first time in five days, and that’s actually an improvement on my routine. I’ve been averaging only one run a week, usually over the weekend. It’s still a huge challenge to manage my schedule so I can run in the evenings after work. Mostly because it's HOT. I don’t think running in the morning on weekdays would work out because if I start at daylight, by the time I drove to the park, ran, drove home, showered and drove to work, I would be super late. My neighborhood doesn’t have the luxury of things like sidewalks or even a shoulder on the road. I live in the woods on a huge hill with winding, steep roads and blind curves. People like to drive down the center of the street at top speed, so I’m risking my life every time I step out for a stroll instead of driving to the park. The fact that a morning run won’t fit into my schedule is unfortunate because the few times that I’ve gone running on the weekends, I’ve gone in the morning when it’s cooler and felt a thousand times better than on my evening runs. Oh well. I’ll run early in the day when I can.
Tonight we ran at a new park, and I have mixed feelings about the experience. It’s a pretty area, and we saw a couple of rabbits and a beautiful creek that puts the other park to shame. However, it’s a lot larger, so we went long stretches without seeing any other people. That’s nice in a way, but the old park is smaller and I didn’t realize until tonight that the people are a much-needed distraction for me. When I see a funny dog or an elderly couple walking together or a kid who refuses to ride her bike and makes her dad push it along, it takes my mind off what I’m doing. Tonight I had no distractions and was fully aware of how hot it was and how tired I felt. Even though I ran my fastest time so far today, it wasn’t as enjoyable. However, it was nice not to worry about being chased by geese and to not have to hop over goose poo on the trail, which was the case at the old park. I guess it’s good to mix it up every once in a while.
My training still consists of alternating walking and running with Podrunner intervals, but I’ve moved up to the next level. I begin with a five-minute walk to warm up, then I alternate running and walking every 90 seconds. The full workout lasts about 30 minutes, and I complete six 90-second runs in between brief walks. I should be able to complete this workout just once more before moving up to the next level and increasing the amount of time that I run. It’s tough, but I’m making progress. I know 90 seconds isn’t very long, but it sure does feel like it. I’m keeping track of distance and time through Nike Plus, which I purchased after I had already completed a couple of workouts. So according to the records I have on Nike Plus, I’ve run a total of almost 16 miles and burned more than 1,400 calories. Not bad for a newbie!
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