Spring has sprung! Officially. On paper, anyway. Today’s weather even seemed like it would cooperate with the calendar, the sun shining out from within a bright blue sky and everything. Then we left to head to meet everyone at the park and like some sort of omen, the sun hid itself behind some dark clouds.
Please just don’t rain. Please just don’t rain. Please just don’t rain.
That ^ totally worked. It did not rain. The sun didn’t make another appearance and it didn’t get much warmer but it did not rain. Yay for that. Because it certainly didn’t get any easier this week- walk three minutes, run three minutes. Five sets of that. What? This is easing into running?
Ok, fine. Three and three. But that’s not all. Yup, up and down those hills. Those hills! When, when, when will that track be clear and available?
Stretching. There’s something I wish I could do. I bet it would help if I could just s t r e t c h my soles before we start off. It looks like it feels good and everyone raves about its importance. Any hoo, after they all got their stretch on, off we headed- towards those dreaded hills. & wouldn’t you know it, minute four placed us right smack dab at the bottom of the first incline. First three minute run and it may as well be vertical. Ugh. Its amazing how long three minutes is when something is difficult. We didn’t stop. We were super slow though, like so slow that the others in our little group kept turning around to check on us- both of them seasoned runners. In fact, the whole of our workout they spoke of past races run, and man, it was intimidating to be barely able to breathe while hearing about 26.2 miles. Talking about “the wall”. Yeah, ladies, we hear that! Our wall, its right here on this next hill.
I don’t mean to seem especially negative, there were definite highlights in this week’s training. The upside to running along side, or slightly behind, actual ‘runners’ is that you get usable advice. My person was advised to try looking down when going uphill because it all looks flat when you’re looking at the ground. Normally, she finds a fixed point to focus on- sort of an ‘up & over’ mentality. Not sure how well that’s working out for her because I can feel her struggling on those hills right along with me. She said she’s going to try it next time which can only help me too. I got some sage advice as well. The third set of running, midway up the biggest hill (of course!) I noticed that we were basically running in place. Seriously, the tree to the right of the path did not recede behind us even after like 4 steps. Strength saw it too and actually called out to me,
Get on your toes, girl!
Which totally worked! Up on our toes and just like that, we were moving again. I don’t what was more shocking, that we were no longer running in place, or that she was so willing to help that Strength took a chance of outing us both as ‘real’ to do the right thing. Not that any of the ladies above us would’ve even noticed, so caught up in their own convo. In fact, they continued chatting in the parking lot long after the training concluded which allowed us to do the same. It feels really nice to have a friend. So good, that I almost forgot about this whole Jim situation with my person. Almost.
Tomorrow morning is the big, early morning, date. I should probably hold off judgment until I have more information, but really, what else could it be?
the sneakers 