Another Failed Attempt

Well, you guessed it dear reader, today was another failed attempt to run around the lake today for my loop of 4.45 miles. I thought it was going to be a great run, I had looked forward to it all day. Planned my eating around it and everything and yet, it didn’t happen like I thought it would. What went wrong?

If I’m being honest with myself, I supposed I would have to say that it began to go wrong yesterday when the muscle was over stretched and is still sore from it today. Most likely caused from doing back to back runs, one evening and the following morning, in the snow and ice with my Yak-Trax’s on. I wouldn’t have been able to run at all without them those two days. They tend to mess with the knees, but I can feel it in the muscle today. I tried to rub it out and stretch it so it didn’t hurt and the result is just feeling angry with myself for not listening to my body when I should have. And the worst part about it is I was starting to feel like I was making progress with recovery. Stupid snow!! And while the weeks have certainly flown past these last five months, I am ready to put myself in a position to start to push myself to do better.

The last two runs that I did get in, except for today, I have made sure to put more effort into the run. I have always relied on just doing my own thing and never pushing myself to get better. I don’t try super hard and once in a while I actually try and then blow my mind. I haven’t worked on this aspect of running, trying to do better, since Vanessa stopped running with me. And this isn’t to blame her in any way, but, I admit I was glad to have some one pushing me to go harder and keep going longer. You can do it, kind of a cheerleader.

I have gotten complacent in my running. I am still trying to convince myself that I work hard when I go out, but, I don’t. I allow the dog to stop and sniff a lot of times. I also walk a lot more than I used to. I have a few goals within my goals for running this year. I want to get better and run for longer distances. I want to run a 10k without walking. That’s one goal for the year. I know I have it in me, I’ve done it before, but, I usually stop running about mile 5. I have been able to run 5 miles in an hour before as well. So, there you have two good goals for the year.

But it’s not just my running that I have been complacent in. Work is a totally different thing for my brain. That’s where the money comes from so I don’t like to feel that way at work at all. But, I’m talking about life. In doing things and completing tasks once in a while. I can say that I’m pretty good at a good number of things, but, I don’t really apply myself to anything except for work. I have so many goals and I often wonder if I will ever hit a goal. I want to play my trumpet and I want to be in the local symphony. I want to finish the paint by numbers I’ve had since 2006. I want to publish my book. I want to do the splits. I want to learn and teach yoga. I want to do massage again. I want to learn to play the violin I bought 5 years ago. With all of these things that I want to do, it seems that being able to put my phone down for any length of time would be a good thing. I have done pretty good with my two hour rule that I have tried to stick with. Must put the phone down for two hours and do something that makes my heart happy. This last week, I have loved sitting on the couch and watching a movie with the family.

I need to have a running partner. I wish my husband would run with me, but, I already run when he’s walking so I don’t know if that’s going to be a thing. He’s already said no. He’s done running for the fun of it. At least a group setting would get me going in the right direction. I loved having Kelsie with me, she was good at pushing me to do better though I could have done a lot better 90% of the time. However, Kelsie has moved away from me so we aren’t as close now. I wish I could get Piper to go with me. But more than just go with me, maybe have fun with it and enjoy it enough that we could do it a lot. Sara would run with me, but she lives in Snowflake which does put a damper on this for us. I thought Hanna would, but, that’s not the case now either. I think I’m out of ideas for people to run with.

Another storm is looming on the horizon. It began as a beautiful sunny bright clear day and now the clouds have moved back in and the sky is getting darker gray by the hour. The school district has already delayed the start of school tomorrow for 2 hours to get things cleared for school tomorrow. I won’t have a snow day, but, that’s ok. Not going to go run it either though, so it looks like it’s going to be a weights kind of day instead.

For today’s run, I set out to do the loop. I wanted to go my 4.5 miles and get that feeling going. What actually happened was I got about .75 miles into and the running was making my leg feel like the muscle behind the knee was popping, like my joint would. We turned around at about mile 1.1 and tried to run more and ended up walking home instead. I figured that since I was going to walk with Vanessa, it’s not going to be a totally wasted run. So, I went home. I wouldn’t say that today was a failure. Perhaps I can call it a failed attempt to do all of the miles, but, the attempt was made and miles were done. So, not a failure, it was just much shorter than planned. A change of plans.