Have I mentioned that running is hard?

I know. I'm being a big, complaining baby about this. But running is hard. And I'm not running fast, either. I'm running slower than a 12 minute mile and three miles seems like an impossibly long distance.

Last night, I found myself, through a series of website to website meanderings, looking through old write-ups of our track and field meets at Williams. I realized two things (or rather, was struck by re-realizing two things). 1) I used to spend about 3 hours a day training as a thrower. Hard core lifting, plyometric, core strengthening, and technique workouts. 2) The 10k runners on our track and field team ran their 10ks in less time than I run a 5k.

In my midnight stupor, did that re-realization make me think--what the hell am I doing training for a half-marathon, clearly I'm a shotputter not a runner? No. It made me think, if I could do what I did in shotput and weight throw, then I can draw on the athlete in me to do what it takes to run this thing. Ah, the things we think in the middle of the night . . .

Today, post 'run', I'm more in the 'what the hell am I doing?' camp. It was slow, it was hard, it was painful in parts. (Fartleking didn't work out so well for me. I think I'm going to have to do some run-walk speed conditioning for a while and then return to fartleking in the future.) The only good things about the run were 1) I finished, 2) it turns out I ran 3.2 miles not 3.1 miles today--making my 39 minutes actually closer to 12 min per mile than 13 min per mile, and 3) I made myself a delicious fruit, soymilk, and protein powder smoothie afterwards.

Also, just to make this complaining blog post complete, my body (especially my knee and my back) seem to be having some issues with the new high-impact adventure I'm taking them on. So, I'm going to take cross-training more seriously (especially things like yoga, core strengthening, and weight training) and am going to make sure I give my body adequate rest days (hence me running today rather than yesterday). After all, I don't want to just get through this thing because I Dared myself to or because I'm raising money for incredible grassroots organizations. I also want to get through it in a way that makes me healthier and happier. And part of that for me has to be 1) not killing my knee, 2) making my back better not worse by doing core strengthening, and 3) increasing my flexibility and the versatility of my muscles.

Ok, now for a shower and then comps reading!