Melanie, Kim and I drove to the Wallsburg turnoff. We ran in towards Wallsburg a 1/2 mile then turned around and headed down the canyon. I didn't want to push the pace and make my tightness and problems worse. As we ran the hills around Deer Creek I couldn't keep up. Just keeping up was hard. When we stopped for water after 5.5 miles I decided to turn around. I wasn't going to keep up and didn't want to go 17 miles. It didn't make sense for me to keep going and have to call my husband for a ride. I ran back to the car.
I actually didn't feel as bad running back. I slowed down and stopped every 3/4 mile to stretch. At one point I realized I actually felt relaxed and was enjoying running. I think I haven't felt relaxed on a run in months. I'm always so stressed about how I'm feeling or how I might feel afterwards, or whether I'm going to be able to keep up, or even finish. I'm so out of shape that I'm pushing it when they're running normal and easy.
I just want to head out on a run feeling confident I'll be able to make it back and not be in pain. I'm going to take two weeks to run by myself, short and slow to try to get feeling completely better before I go hard again. Hopefully by the time my friends recover from Utah Valley in five or six weeks I'll be able to run with them again. Right now I don't even care about going fast, I just want to feel good. |