The (Running) Troubles
For whatever reason, I’ve been running like shit since returning to the Hawkeye State.
Frankly, it’s been torture. Not so much in the physical, aches and pains sense, but more along the lines of self-inflicted disappointment.
At one point last year I was running seven miles every other day. It took me a little more than an hour; I averaged just worse than nine minutes per mile. When I stopped I wasn’t even winded; I breathed at a normal pace, as if I had just walked across the street. There were times when I literally felt I could run forever.
Now, running just 10 minutes straight is arduous.
A few days after arriving back in Iowa, I started running a high-level version of the run-walk method: three five-minute runs separated by 30-second walks. It was similar to what I was running before I moved; I had slowly been building stamina and distance after the time I took off for my Crotch Misfortune scare. I thought it would be enough to get my legs used to the inclines and hills, and reacclimate my lungs to the humidity.
But as Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen famously said, “You thought wrong, dude.”
Having run the almost completely level sidewalks, streets, and dirt paths of the Bolsa Chica housing tract and wetlands in HB, even the slight undulations of IC’s landscape challenge me. Though the “hills” of Rochester and Scott didn’t kill me, it was tough running. (You never know how hilly an area is until you start running in it.) The route wasn’t easy enough to slowly build strength and stamina, so after a few runs I chose a smoother route: Friendship Street. Friendship proved to be much better. Though the terrain rises and falls gently, the only real challenge is the short incline where the street curves north to meet Court Street.
For about three weeks I added time and distance to my runs, and even chained a few of the five-minute runs together to test myself. But it still wasn’t right. I never got the feeling I was improving — only pushing myself harder and longer than I was ready to. My thighs and hamstrings ached, something that almost never happened in HB. So last week I decided to do what I’d been thinking about doing all along: admit I was a running pussy and start from scratch.
I’m starting to run all over again. I have reverted to a run-walk scheme I used after becoming serious about running in California: eight three-minute runs separated by one-minute walks. Not only that, but I decided to alternate my runs at Friendship with one or two at the lovely, and level, red asphalt track at Bates Field.
Twenty-four minutes of uncontinous running. Pathetic.
But it’s what I have to do if I want to conquer the hills, the devastating humidity, and the unforgiving concrete and run like I ran before. (The humidity, though, will eventually give way to a different weather obstacle.) It’s hard for me to fall back, to know I’m not doing as much as I was. Running, though, isn’t easy, and I forgot that it literally takes months — months and MONTHS — to build the endurance to run like I did last year. (It takes me months — months and MONTHS — that is. For others it may not take so long.)
It takes time, man. It takes lots of time.
Frankly, it’s been torture. Not so much in the physical, aches and pains sense, but more along the lines of self-inflicted disappointment.
At one point last year I was running seven miles every other day. It took me a little more than an hour; I averaged just worse than nine minutes per mile. When I stopped I wasn’t even winded; I breathed at a normal pace, as if I had just walked across the street. There were times when I literally felt I could run forever.
Now, running just 10 minutes straight is arduous.
A few days after arriving back in Iowa, I started running a high-level version of the run-walk method: three five-minute runs separated by 30-second walks. It was similar to what I was running before I moved; I had slowly been building stamina and distance after the time I took off for my Crotch Misfortune scare. I thought it would be enough to get my legs used to the inclines and hills, and reacclimate my lungs to the humidity.
But as Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen famously said, “You thought wrong, dude.”
Having run the almost completely level sidewalks, streets, and dirt paths of the Bolsa Chica housing tract and wetlands in HB, even the slight undulations of IC’s landscape challenge me. Though the “hills” of Rochester and Scott didn’t kill me, it was tough running. (You never know how hilly an area is until you start running in it.) The route wasn’t easy enough to slowly build strength and stamina, so after a few runs I chose a smoother route: Friendship Street. Friendship proved to be much better. Though the terrain rises and falls gently, the only real challenge is the short incline where the street curves north to meet Court Street.
For about three weeks I added time and distance to my runs, and even chained a few of the five-minute runs together to test myself. But it still wasn’t right. I never got the feeling I was improving — only pushing myself harder and longer than I was ready to. My thighs and hamstrings ached, something that almost never happened in HB. So last week I decided to do what I’d been thinking about doing all along: admit I was a running pussy and start from scratch.
I’m starting to run all over again. I have reverted to a run-walk scheme I used after becoming serious about running in California: eight three-minute runs separated by one-minute walks. Not only that, but I decided to alternate my runs at Friendship with one or two at the lovely, and level, red asphalt track at Bates Field.
Twenty-four minutes of uncontinous running. Pathetic.
But it’s what I have to do if I want to conquer the hills, the devastating humidity, and the unforgiving concrete and run like I ran before. (The humidity, though, will eventually give way to a different weather obstacle.) It’s hard for me to fall back, to know I’m not doing as much as I was. Running, though, isn’t easy, and I forgot that it literally takes months — months and MONTHS — to build the endurance to run like I did last year. (It takes me months — months and MONTHS — that is. For others it may not take so long.)
It takes time, man. It takes lots of time.
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