Saturday, May 15, 2010

No excuses: 5K route with toddler

I am still on an every other day running schedule and this week, an every other day fell on Friday. My Friday night runs have been tough but I was determined to pull through it. Until I started feeling sick. Really sick. I hated to do so but I "rescheduled" my run to today. My life and my body are just not the same and I realize that I have to accept that. With everything going on for today, I knew that I would need to get my run in earlier in the day.

Rich needed to do some work in the garden so I offered to take a little chick with me on my run so he would only have two little chicks to watch in the yard. I should mention that aside from those two miles a few weeks ago, I never run with anyone in the jogging stroller. Never. I didn't really know what to expect and Rich told me to just go slow. I always set some type of goal for myself whether it be mileage (usually treadmill running) or time (usually outdoor running) so I decided that I would be happy if I could pull off 12 minute miles.

We have mapped out a 5K (3.1 miles) route and I decided to run that. Partially in training for an upcoming 5K. Although I don't plan to push a stroller for that.

The first mile clocked in at 10:40, which was a bit of a surprise. There are no sidewalks until the end of that mile and I had to keep slowing down and running into yards and I almost twisted my ankle again in the same location as last year.

The second mile is mostly a slow increasing hill with a decent hill thrown in there close to the end. I hit a long stretch of a very open area at the end of that mile and had trouble pushing the stroller due to the wind. There was much more high wind than usual today. It took me about 12 minutes to run that mile.

I always want to quit at the end of that second mile on this route but I didn't. I kept plugging along. Around 2.5 miles, I started thinking about what I would tell Rich. I had to slow down when there was no sidewalk, the hills, the wind. And then I stopped and said to myself, "No excuses. Finish strong." I thought about Anna and how she might never be able to run a 5K.

Final time = 33:49

That is just under 11 minute miles.

I am never going to be a fantastic runner but I give it my all. And sometimes that is all that matters.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kudos to you!!! So proud of you.
Love, Mom a.k.a. Grammy

susanne13 said...

It's all about what your running means to you! Just did my half marathon and was soooo sloooow, but it wasn't about the time for me :) Keep it up!!

Wendy said...

You are doing great, S!! Keep up the hard work :)

Ellen said...

Congratulations!! I am so impressed that you are running!! Good luck!!

Sarah said...

Thanks for the comments, everyone!