Today was Day 4 on my half-marathon training schedule. I was scheduled for Rest/Cross-Training, but since I skipped running yesterday (yep, you read that I right, I was already slacking off three days into my training plan), I decided to do the miles today.
Holy mackerel it was hard! I only had to do 2 miles but it was terrible. This I attribute to three things: my pants, the treadmill, and the heat. By blaming the pants, you see, I can avoid the obvious answer that I struggled because I'm grossly out of shape. It was the pants.
I bought new pants yesterday at TJMaxx. My new guru pants, I call them, because they're made out of dry-fit fabric and are supposed to make me run faster. They're soft and stretchy and I just feel like a runner in them. I decided to wear them running today because it was, like, 45 degrees out and pretty nice pants weather. But then my loving husband very generously agreed to come running with me, and he preferred that we head to the gym rather than brave the cold. Which brings me to blame-worthy item number 2, the treadmill. I think it's harder to run on a treadmill. I never used to think that, because I never used to run more than ten minutes at a time. But when you're jogging there in place for any longer than that you get bored and it's hard and you don't want to slow down because last time you were on the treadmill you were able to go at a 5 pace for twenty minutes and anything less would be psychologically defeating. So you suffer it out. And this treadmill was worse because it was positioned right in front of a window, smack dab in the middle of the sun's heat rays. And in this tiny gym, the windows act like they might in a greenhouse, trapping the heat and reflecting it onto anything moving. So I jogged there in my pants, seconds from heat stroke, until the treadmill mercifully displayed 2:00 miles on the keyboard and I could slow down.
Incidentally, my new years resolution this year is to finish my training. All of it. And when I run my half-marathon in March my 2009 resolution will be fulfilled.
