My First Day Back

Can someone please cut me a slice of humble pie?  This morning marked my first day back running.  I have been looking forward to this date for the past 10 months or so.  Last week, I prepared myself by thinking about how I was going to ease back into running.  After I lost Rachel, I just got out there and did what I had to do to make myself feel better.  Too much too soon led to an injury.  I didn't want to repeat that experience again this time around.  I know a lot of runners who have used the Couch to 5K training plan to ease back into running after a long hiatus, so I decided now would be my chance to try this plan out.  I found it online and printed off a copy.  "Yes!  I'm so excited!" I told myself.  I then looked at the calendar and marked a week from then that I would start running again.  The plan calls for running 3 days a week for 9 weeks with a slow build up to running continuously for 30 minutes or 3.1 miles.  I counted the 9 weeks and saw my end date: July 23.  "Hmmm...I wonder if there is a 5K near by that is on that date?"  I go to my local and not so local running club pages and search through their events.  "Aha!  July 23rd, Long Beach, NY...5K!"  I decided to run Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.  I discussed my plan with Ping:  "I'll feed Erin that last early morning feed (usually around 5am) and then run after.  That way I will be done before you head off to work. Then Saturday mornings, you will be here too. Also, there happens to be a 5K race at the end of this, can I register?"  "That all sounds fine to me." Ping replied.  I'm so thankful to have a husband on board with this!

Okay, back to this morning.  Well, rewind a little bit.  Ping feeds Erin at 11pm, then heads to bed.  Around 3:30, I notice Erin stirring and telling us she's ready to eat again.  (I was a bit shocked as this is the longest she's gone at night without eating, ever!) Ping was supposed to get this one.  But I realized that I would be feeding Erin at 6:30am, thus not allowing me to run!  He told me he would take the 6am feed if I did this and I can still run.  What a sweetheart!  I really love this man!

Okay, now, really back to this morning.  6am, alarm goes off.  I roll out of bed (with a split second guess of whether I should go or not), get on my new running clothes (yes new, because I don't yet fit into my old ones!), lace up my shoes, blow off the dust and power up my Garmin 205 and head out the door.

First part: brisk 5 minute walk.  No problem.  My watch beeps to tell me to move onto the the next thing:  run/jog for 60 seconds....I then move into a running pace, or what I thought I remembered running to be!  The first 10 steps were more of a balancing act making sure I actually don't fall flat on my face. It seemed that every one of those 10 steps I took, my feet kept hitting each other as they passed.  I'm sure to the common spectator across the street, they pegged me for a weirdo:  someone who has obviously never run before in their life, yet has this running watch that screams: "I take running seriously."

Beep...Beep...Beep....next phase: walk 90 seconds.  Whew!  That was a bit of a nightmare!  Walking is good, I can do walking.

I had 7 more rounds of that to go.  With each round of running, my body started to get a little better at it.  I'm sure I still looked like a goof though.  It's nice to know that at 6am the only people out on the street in NYC are those that are walking their dogs one last time before they stuff them back in their tiny apartment and head into the city for the next 8-12 hours.

As I reached the end of my run, I felt better...better to be back out on the road and better to be running again. Now please hand me the rest of that pie.