Progress, Small But Mighty

Scheduled: 3 Actual: 3 RPE: 4

I ran these 3 miles in about 40 minutes. They might always be my slowest; my body really resists the effort of running.

It was a little less humid this morning but not much. I woke up and told myself I was going to finish all the miles, so I did. Also, I made plans to call a friend back home so that motivated me to get out of bed in time to run and shower before the call. It really helps me to have things outside myself motivating me to do something. That's one of the reasons I wanted to do this marathon. I really need to learn how to make myself a priority! But it will be a process so I need to try and work with myself. Giving myself another reason to wake up on time really helps.

Lately, I have noticed that I don't feel tired or sore until after I've stopped running. In weeks past I felt every little ache and discomfort; I only stopped short of naming them. But after my 7-mile run last Friday I think my mind shifted a bit from the pain. It's there, I know it's there but I just keep running. It doesn't phase me anymore. I've accepted it as a fact of my training and now I just run with it, as if it's my running buddy. Small but mighty progress.

I sprained my ankle March of 2009 and I was worried how much of this training it could handle. Since February of this year I have had low back pain and knowing that running can be a strain on your back I worried how much training my back could take. But so far I actually feel much better on the days I run as opposed to the days I don't.

I haven't had any ankle pain at all. Sometimes during my runs my back aches a bit but after stretching it feels just fine. I don't run during the weekend and that's when I notice more back pain. I'm going to stick to this training schedule with days off but once I get back to running after the marathon I think I'll run as many days a week as I can since it seems to be helping.

To be honest, though it'll make me sound like a crazy person given what I thought last week, I am really looking forward to my Friday run.

Let's Running.