Back on Track. Literally. or Workout 20 of 24 for May

You will notice it is May 31st, and I am somehow missing FOUR workouts for the month. Fortunately I feel guilt free about this. I contracted a common illness that I've never had before. Strep.

I woke up Thursday morning feeling like I had elastic pulling my throat closed. It wasn't scary, but it was awful. I knew that working out was not in the cards for the day. I tried coming up with different exercises that wouldn't add to the suffering of strep, but came up with nothing. I decided this would be some major time off.

This morning was the first I have felt mmm.... normal. I could breathe, although my throat was still somewhat raspy and sore. I was weak, but not extremely. Today was the day for me to run week 4 day 1 of Couch to 5k. As it was the week prior, the week's (scary) long run had become the short run. The breaks in between were vastly shortened. I was nervous, but knew I was going to stink at it anyway, because of my illness and healing.

And it was raining.

Peach and I loaded up, and after the school bus pulled away, optimistic, I started my warmup going a different direction, knowing that more running would mean longer distance, and my route needed to be modified. That has actually been an interesting phenomenon.

I do not have a pedometer, and have not found an app that is happy to work alongside my 5k app. I'm sure there is one, though. I have no idea how far I'm going, but every week it gets longer, and longer! That's awesome!

Before I knew it, my app said, "Run now". I obeyed. I started spacing off, thinking of...everything. I thought about my brother. I thought about The Captain working out of state this week. I thought about dinner. I thought about Lambie's fieldtrip in two days. And before i knew it, last week's "impossible" long run (this week's short run) was over. I felt like I was just warming up. It was a great feeling!

The breaks being shorter, it wasn't long before I was told "Run now". So off I went, for the long run. Almost double the "short" run. I focused on spacing off. And looking ahead for road hazards such as RV's, basketballs, and even sidewalk chalk and slugs.

The command to "Walk now" was a nice surprise. I was feeling amazing. I ran run three the same way. But I can honestly tell you that run four did not go the way of the other three. I thought about "Run four. The last run. I have a week to get this perfect. It would be understandable if I didn't rock it. I could walk through part of this one." It was shameful, but about halfway through, I walked for 10 seconds. And I realized something dumb. I was breathing just as hard walking (from the exhaustion of running) as I was while running! So I ran again! And after a while, I stopped. AGAIN. It took about 2 seconds before I started up again, and with just less than a minute left, I slowed to a walk. I felt ashamed, a little, but realized it's really okay. It's really, really okay. No excuses. It's okay.

The distance I added to my run is amazing. I am thrilled! I am excited that I was able to do SO MUCH post-strep and four days off. I am so thankful that I didn't let my workouts go by the wayside. I am looking forward to tomorrow's 100 Workout, and the following day's run. However, I fear it won't go as well as today... We'll see!