From human to hardcore

When I started running back in September I wasn’t documenting my pitfalls. I was just letting my running application send notifications to Facebook and twitter that I completed another day in the couch to 5K training plan. Sometimes people would comment on my Facebook with words of encouragement or by talking of how they wished they could do something like that as well and that I made it seem easy. I often replied that I never told people about the crap involved with my training to run.

I made the decision this time to document my trials and tribulations. Let me be the first one to say that last night’s run was hard. It was hard for several reasons. I had a timeline of getting my run in, showering, and making it to an event. I was running a new route because the park roads were crappy the last time I ran there.  I was running in direct traffic.  I was running into the wind, I hit a puddle in my last ten minutes and had a cold and wet foot.  I had some shin stiffness and cursed myself for forgetting my compression socks.

I tag my runs on Nike +, it asks how you felt. Yesterday was a so-so tagged run. Running into the wind in the already cold air was difficult; difficult to keep motivation, difficult to keep paying attention to cars, difficult to avoid slush and puddles. It was hard on my lungs too. At the beginning of each week, when you increase the time you run compared to the time you walk, well for my asthma riddled lungs it rejects the increase in use.  I will phlegm up, spit more, and then I hear myself cough and wheeze for the next day until I have to return to running again. It’s not attractive.

Last night my plans shifted a bit but I still met some people out for a social engagement. As we sat down for dinner I felt my legs deaden, I knew after sitting for an hour it would be difficult to move around again.  I was passing out by 9pm and excusing myself from my company to then drive 45 minutes home and just take some Aleve and pass out.

Today my legs are heavy. My left knee has a bit of residual pain. My long term goal is what is replenishing my motivation because at times I let the idea of “a 15K is crazy” enter my mind last night.  So I have doubts too, I just have a history that tells me to push through my doubts and to endure the pain.  I’m just human trying to head to hardcore.