120 Seconds

As I walked for my warm up this morning, I shivered. A woman sitting on her porch was bundled up in a warm looking wrap and here I was in shorts and t-shirt. Am I crazy? Should I put something else on? But 35 minutes later when I got home, I was quite warm.

The whole run seemed to be a struggle to push myself. I thought maybe the cool weather would help, but my body just did not want to move. Since this is my middle week run, it was the one that I pushed myself on.

Walk - 6 minutes
Run - 60 sec
Walk - 2 min
Run - 90 sec
Walk - 2 min
Run - 75 sec (wimped out)
Walk - 3 min
Run - 75 sec (made up for my time)
Walk - 2 min
Run - 2 min!!!
Walked the rest of the way home. I may have walked a little more between runs, but don't remember now. It was about 35 min out of the house.

On my last run, I got to the place where I was to start my 90 sec and there comes the garbage truck coming toward me. (And another reason not to run on Thurs is it's garbage day and it's not pleasant to run by.) I thought great, I can't wait until it goes by because it stops every few meters and I like this mostly flat place to get in a longer run. So I started off and committed to not looking at my watch until I ran past the truck. It was 75 seconds. I pushed myself past the road construction sign, 90 seconds. My legs started to complain, "hey, remember us? We're still going here. Are we done yet?" The next driveway...hey, only 15 sec to go until 2 minutes. Done!

What I learned is that if I don't push myself, my legs will get lazy and stop when they could have kept going.

In other news, I notice that my belly fat is getting floppier and kind of gross looking. I used to be somewhat glad that my fat has always been firm so I didn't have that puckered cottage cheese look. But now it's all sagging and there's a new crease near my waist. Reminds me of a balloon that you slowly let the air out of. I sure hope that the fat is being let out of my body.

Comments

I like to think the word "energize" myself instead of "push" myself. I used to think of it as pushing myself but that seemed to much like I was forcing myself to do something I didn't want to. When I think of energizing myself it sounds more exciting and positive. like when you need batteries to run a piece of equipment that you really want to use. It's like getting charged up, or generating more chi, or waking up the cells and getting going! Like coming alive, instead of giving in to dying.
Julie said…
I do like that word better! Sometimes it's all in the semantics.