Am I invited to your BBQ after I scrape myself off the pavement? 10k Training, Day One

First of all, can we just address the irony of running outdoors while the sweet sweet smell of delicious Barbeque floats in the air? Damn you and your delicious barbeque.

In all honesty though, “running” those three miles and smelling people cooking did not make me hungry. No, it made me want to puke. But when I am uncomfortable, I always turn to humor. There's my joke of the day people. *bows*

Yesterday was an eye opener to say the least. I am up to about a mile and a half on the treadmill running, at a slow pace, but running none the less. Leigh Ann and I signed up for this running clinic through her gym that would train for a 10k over 9 weeks. I figured if I could run atleast a mile and a half to start, the adrenaline and motivation from the group would push me harder than running alone. That was until I ran outdoors (for the first time, a week before the clinic). What a slap in the face. Running outside is 94.236% harder than running on a treadmill. My neighbor put it in perspective for me when he said “Running on a treadmill is easy because you’re just picking up your feet. Running on pavement forces you to pull your weight along AND pick up your feet”. Oh, never thought about like that. Glad I realized the week before I have to run 3 miles to start.

I ran outside three times before the running clinic, and was never able to run more than 0.25 miles at a time. Still, I felt fine about the clinic, and was actually excited about it. I will confess to yall what a judgemental evil person I am and say when I arrived at the gym,  saw all the others I thought, “Well atleast I won’t be last”. I ONLY felt this way because I feel like after all the gym time I’ve put in, I’m in decent shape and some of these people claimed to have never run before. There were two older women in the group and I stupidly thought, well, I’m younger and in better shape, I just don’t want to be last. We got our training plan and did some warm up stretching.

 

I stayed excited about it till about 3 minutes in. I mistakenly started out running faster than my usual slow and consistant speed. I wanted to keep up with the pack. I was about the 4^th or 5^th runner till I had to stop and walk. I should’ve pounded it out till the very last second before I thought I might die.  I didn’t though. I stopped. I saw others walking and figured it was okay. Another mistake. Comparing myself to others again. Two of the girls who said they’d never run before were now several houses ahead of me. I kept going though. I alternated walking and running for the first mile and a half before it turned into mostly walking. My lungs ached, my legs throbbed and I was mad. I was so mad that I was in such worse shape than I thought. Everyone was running circles around me and I couldn’t even see the few that were ahead of the pack.

There were about 4 of us toward the end, and the two older ladies were a little bit behind our group. I ended up literally turning my music down to barely above a whisper because it was distracting me. One of the running coaches stayed behind with us, trying to push us to keep running, not to stop, to focus and breathe. Breathing was so hard for me. I couldn’t for the life of me focus on just breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. It made me so light headed but I couldn’t keep it under control. The running coach ended up holding my phone for me because it was just in my way. I only had it for my music and I wasn’t even using that.

I was still trucking along though, running and walking. Then about 2 miles in, a woman running my same pace the whole way tells me this is her first day running. And she was wearing new shoes. And was new to working out. She passed me up and I never saw her again. A big enough blow in itself, till the two older women left my ass in the dust too.

I am so, so ashamed to admit this but I was literally in tears at the last mile. I wasn’t sobbing uncontrollably, but I remember trying as hard as I could to keep it together. I was so mad though. So mad at myself for thinking I was in shape. So mad at myself for letting myself get this OUT of shape. So mad that literally everyone had passed me up. Yes, it wasn’t about finishing fast or finishing first. I just didn’t want to be dead last. And here I was, dead ass last. And not just by a little bit. By a lot. I was embarrassed, I was frustrated, I was in pain, and I just wanted to quit. I thought to myself, “If I hadn’t paid this much money to do this, I would never come back.” But honestly, I’m glad I paid. If that’s the only thing that’ll keep me going back, so be it. I don’t want to be miserable trying to just finish a run. But I don’t want to be miserable and obese even more. It sucked. Simple as that. The whole time I was running I thought, so negatively, and I hate that.

I felt so foolish thinking “I am a runner” and pinning all these cheesy motivational running quotes, reading a book about a marathoner, researching all this cool running gear I wanted. When in reality, I can’t even come out second to last in a pack.

I managed to snap one picture while running, just to show how far behind Negative Nancy I was. At one point I actually thought, “I bet everyone is thinking ‘atleast I’m not dead last’!” It was a sh*tty feeling.

 

Now, even though this post is super negative (although it is the complete ugly truth), I want you all to know that I’m not stopping. Our next run scheduled on the training is a 2.5 mile run on Saturday. I am still going to do it. I know I can’t run 2.5 miles nonstop, but I will try to run as far as I can without stopping. When I need to walk, I’ll walk. I know I will improve. I know by the end of this, I will be able to do the run I did yesterday much faster and run for way longer. After all, I used to only be able to run a minute before I had to stop. I know I will improve. I know it will take time.  I will continue.

 

I know I will make progress.  I know I will improve. I know I can do this. I think I can, I think I can. Quitting will hurt no one but me. I committed to this and I will finish. It will take time and patience but I can do this. I have to do this.