Update and bad runs

A week and a half ago I created a post saying that I was running again and that I had 30 something days until my birthday run of 30 miles.

Well I'm still running! Yay!

My wife and I are also trying to eat better again. This time were slowly making changes. Every week we make a change. No sweets the week of Halloween was a tough one. More water intake wasn't a big deal for me, but I'm actually finding it difficult to fit in 4 to 6 servings of fruits /veggies a day. Next week is no more bread.

My runs have been going pretty good for the most part. I'm running at night now instead of in the morning. I'm not sure exactly what I think about that. My weekend long runs (yes, I've started them! ) are still in the mornings. Last Saturday I got up and knocked out 10 miles, and I'm actually preparing to go run another 10 miles right now (it is Saturday morning right now) and plan on running another 10 miles tomorrow morning.

Most of my runs feel good, but I did have one that started off like crap.

Everything felt stiff and disconnected. I couldn't find a good rhythm. I was bouncing too much, and my feel were slapping the sidewalk. Usually when this happens I take a few deep breaths thru the nose real slowly and try to get my body into a state of relaxation, but it wasn't happening this night. So I decided to do Fartleks instead.

For those who don't know, a fartlek is where you run at 2 different paces for different amounts of time/distances. For this run I chose to vary between my normal snail's crawl pace and a very hard effort pace.

Instead of choosing a distance or a time to alternate paces, I decided that when I got exhausted from running fast, I would pick a location as far down the sidewalk as I could see and run just past it. Then I would creep along again until I felt I had regained my composure and then take off again.

This took a bad feeling run and made it a good run that left me with some burning legs that were actually sore the next day. I don't get sore legs very often, so it was a bit of a suprise!

It made me think that I can go out and enjoy a good run every time I feel good, but the real challenge is to go out and enjoy the bad runs too. It's all about pushing yourself thru adversity!