And We Begin Again...

For those of you waiting eagerly for an update on my last post, I'll start with confirming that pretty much as soon as I posted it I registered for this year's Race For The Hungry Holiday 5K in Burlington.  So it was just a matter of getting clearance to actually run.  My doctor appointment was yesterday and I was happy to hear that I had clearance to not only run again but he was thrilled and a bit shocked that I had signed up for a race so soon.  He actually called me a badass and told me to have at it.  So that's all good news :)

I consulted briefly with one of my running heroes and she advised me that there really wasn't much training to do with only 5 days prep, but that we could hope to work out any soreness before the race.  She gave me a schedule of:

• Monday:  Run
• Tuesday:  Run
• Wednesday:  Rest
• Thursday:  Run
• Friday:  Rest
• Saturday:  RACE DAY!!

Sounded good and reasonable to me!  So I was all geared up to get back into the swing of things and then it dawned on me:  Wifey will be gone the ENTIRE WEEK not to return until Friday night!!  Yikes!  Finding the time to run with 2 kids and no help was going to be challenging.  I figured I had two options.  I could either wait until they were both asleep and run at night.  We all know that I don't function well at night and anything after 9pm is going to be a lost cause, or I could force a nap on the boy during the day and bring the girl downstairs with me.  Clearly I was hoping for the second option.

Monday is upon us and K was getting over some kind of stomach funkiness.  We went to my mother's house in the afternoon so the boy fell asleep in the car ride up there, so there was no option 2 for Monday.  My best bet was to get them to sleep early and run after that.  I strategically stayed at my mother's house until 7:30, hoping they would fall asleep and be out for the night in the car.  No such luck.  Not only were they both awake for the whole ride, but the boy was WIRED!  When all was said and done, they were down around 10:00.  There was no way I was taking to the treadmill at that hour.  Ugh.  So let's recalculate the run schedule:

• Tuesday:  Run
• Wednesday:  Run
• Thursday:  Run
• Friday:  Rest
• Saturday:  RACE DAY!!

Not thrilled but there's not really another option.  So here we are, today is Tuesday and I just did my first run since August, and let me tell you it was horrible!  I was hoping to get through a straight mile without walking and if I could do further, great.  But I greatly overestimated my abilities and underestimated how much my body had changed.  I'm still carrying about 5 extra pounds on me, which doesn't sound like a lot but it sure feels like a lot when you're trying to run! I wasn't very far along, but I guess my body changed more than I had thought.  I guess it being the 3rd time around the shift happens more quickly.  My running clothes felt strange and looked even more horrible, and running itself just felt foreign.  This was not what I remembered running to be like.  I could feel the extra fat pulling my stomach down as I took each step, my legs felt like lead, and the whole of my posture and form just felt wrong.  Like my body wasn't moving the way it was supposed to.  I'm trying to remember what it was like when I first started running; I remember it hurting, sure.  I remember being unsure if I was doing it right.  But I felt like I was in my own body.  Tonight I didn't feel like I was me, I felt like I was running in someone else's body.  It was foreign, it was wrong.  My center of gravity and balance was shifted.  All of this makes sense of course, but I didn't think that all of this would have happened within 12 weeks.  Hopefully as time passes and things go back to "normal" I will feel more like I'm in my own body, but who knows how long that is going to take?

But here we are, we have a race to run, and these are the cards that were dealt.  Tonight I managed to run a half mile, walked for 0.1, and then ran the other 0.4 in a total of 12:33.  Dreary.  Blech.  But I have to remember that I am starting from scratch basically, and I can't expect 9:30 miles right now.  Apparently I can't even expect a mile right now!  lol.  But we still have two more days.  I know there won't be much of an improvement but the only way it's going to get any better is to run through it.  My goal for the race at this point is to just finish in whatever way possible.  Just finish.

I made sure to stretch, but I am sure that I will be sore as heck tomorrow anyway so the foam roller is on standby!  Here we go!