5m

Todays run started in my head. "Self," I said, "I want you to go for a run today, but I realize your legs are tired and sore from yesterday's workout... so I think I will only ask you to run the 3 mile, rather than the 5 mile loop today." I responded positively to the idea and got up from my desk and headed toward the gym to change. As I was walking outside it was such a nice, cool running temperature with fresh rain on the ground I changed my mind... "Self," I said again, "It is such a lovely day it would be a shame to waste it on a short run... why don't we do the 5 mile loop but we can alternate walking and running as we se fit." I agreed with myself and grabbed my bag out of my car and went inside...

In the locker room myself and I bantered back and forth about how nice it would be to take a nice easy run thru the streets of North Portland today and how it would work the lactic acid out of our muscles and how fabulous we would feel afterward and we got suited up, tied our shoes and strapped on our brand new BLUE MINI iPOD and headed out the door! (Hey, Kat can't be the only one getting rewards these days!!!).

I started at a brisk walk to warm up the achy leg muscles and after a couple of blocks the beat of the electronic house music kicked in and the legs just started pumping! "Hooray, this feels great!" I told myself... to which I responded, "It sure does and these are some kickin' tunes!" "Hey!" I continued... "Lets run to the first turn and then we'll see how we feel and maybe walk for a while." "Sounds GREAT!" I responded enthusiastically.

And so I ran... and at the first turn I was still feeling pretty good, so I kept on running... and at the second turn (about half way thru) I was starting to get fatigued, but still didn't think I needed to walk yet... and hey, I was almost half way thru anyway, so I might as well see how far I could go without walking at all, right?

And I kept running... and while I was a bit tired, my knees weren't sore and my legs were not screaming and my breathing was not labored and the tunes really were kickin, and so I kept on running.

And when I came to the final turn before I headed back down the hill to the gym I told myself, "Hey, you've done a really great job today... this run was supposed to be a walk-run, but you've run the whole thing... WAY TO GO!!" to which I replied, "Oh yeah? You ain't seen nuttin' yet, sistah!" And suddenly my legs were moving faster and my arms were pumping hard and I sprinted at top speed the last quarter mile of the run all the way back to the gym!

And when I was done and had caught my breath I said slyly to myself, "well, well, well. I'll know better than to offer you an easy run next time, won't I?" and I gulped and smiled and directed myself to the stretching room to cool down.

Posted by Lexy at May 27, 2004 01:08 PM