Running journal ~ Day 42-44

So I forgot to mention Thursday I took the day off to rest (even though I could have and probably should have gone out for 30 minutes). My dog was not too happy, but I just had so much to finish before Saturday!

Friday ~ almost had to run in the rain, but once again God graciously gave a 30 minute window of time for the fair weather runner such as I to go out and stretch her endurance level some. That's probably a good thing, because I was seriously considering not going out if it was raining since I would then only have a short window to dry off and get to work. I really didn't think I should show up looking like a drowned rat! =0) Good running time. My stamina is getting back up to 2 to 3 minute jogging periods. Though I seem to peeter out at the end. I think however that is a matter of will rather than physical limitation. I think I need to imagine my "great cloud of witnesses" standing along the roadway screaming "you're almost there," "it's just around the corner," "come on...you can make it 20 more feet," and my favorite ~ "GAMBATTE!!!!"
I can feel my muscles getting stronger though, especially my hips. Perhaps one day soon I will glide instead of bounce (or vault for all you technical people out there).

Saturday ~ technically a rest/cross training day. I don't get a lot of exercise teaching my Little Dragons class, so I was going to go out for a run after that (since my Sensei had cancelled the bonus class to do a demo and the Health Fair over at North Thurston), but Sensei asked if I would come over and help them out with the demo, which of course I said yes to. That was fun, and having been away from Karate all week my muscles told me about it later. I also found out that I have nearly perfect blood pressure (thanks to the cardiologist booth)! Who knew! So no running Saturday.

Sunday ~ running sort of split up. I got to chase the kids around the open field in a rousing game of freeze tag for a while until church was done. Then I went out at 4 for a 20 minute lap. My goal was to walk 2 run 2 and see how many of those I could do. However, there were a few distractions along the way ~ namely other dogs ~ so I walked a little longer than I wanted to in some places, but I did run for 2 minutes for most of the runs. As I said earlier, there comes a point where you just have to will yourself to carry on, and if you do not have a cheerleader with you it is very easy to give in to your fleshly desire to quit! I must confess I quit twice. TWICE!!! Once, at a minute and a half ( you would think 30 sec is nothing, until you can't breathe well and your legs don't like you anymore) and the other on the home stretch with rain drops on my face; but I was so close to home I didn't have to run to get there in a good amount of time, so 45 seconds was "good enough" and then just walk the rest of the way. Again you would think that rain and cold wind would be motivating, but the rain wasn't hard enough to override the exhaustion I was feeling. Not enough water either, causing that annoying stitch in my side. You'd think I'd have that down by now. Water...good. No water...bad!!! hmph...

Tomorrow I get to try again.

Shalom y'all. =0)