Sisters, Spaces, and Stuff: More to it...

Now that I've put about 5 miles on my new shoes, I can say I am still enjoying this running thing.

I have started to see that it's really not all about working your body to it's max, discovering muscles you never knew you had, stretching without feeling like you look silly (because you know with out those stretches you will be hurting!), and constantly battling yourself for a good time per mile and overall. I have never looked at the weather report or thought about the weather as much as I do now. I have never thought about the arches of my feet as much as I do now, and I have never felt as good as I did asking my "runner" friends/family how to battle sore calves only a mile into a run. On Tuesday I started off with my head held high and an 11 minute mile pace and realized at interval round 3 (see C25K training plan) about 1 mile in that I had started off way too fast and pushed myself a little harder than I should have for being such a newbie. Let me tell you, my calf muscles were ~~hurting~~ ON FIRE! I had to stop my run and stretch on the side of the path I was on. Once the initial burning stopped I was able to start going again but I ended up skipping a run interval and walking it with a quicker pace instead. The longer walk time helped me out and I was able to finish up running. Matt usually comes with me and we agreed that we were going to add another mile to our course. I was done with the "running" part a little over a mile into it so I just power walked the rest. Toward the end my legs were NOT happy and I just could not figure out what was wrong.

Since then I haven't been able to fully unbend my right knee without shooting pain. I've determined that I might have my first minor "runner injury" and I am chalking it up to the fact that, confident in my pace or not, I just can NOT start off at an 11 minute pace and I need to start slow and build up to that pace. I ended up skipping my run today and my body is mad at me but I'm determined to give my knee a day of rest so I can get back out there this weekend! While slowing down to keep myself from further injury I have realized just how pretty some sights are while out on a run. Had I not turned to this enjoyable exercise I may have forgot something as beautiful as this!