When I was little I read some book about this kid and his sister who had a messed up leg since birth. The kid is always going on adventures and his sister is super jealous, and in the end she finally gets her leg fixed and the book closes with her asking her brother to run with her, and they run through the fields with their dog and she’s so happy and it’s the best thing ever. I tried to figure out the name of the book, but Googling “olden days book about girl with crippled legs who finally runs at the end” didn’t tell me the answer, so I gave up. It’s not that important anyway. What I’m getting at, is that I ran today!
Thanks for that, internet stock photos (except I think in the book the kids were more like ten years old, not five)!
My run was on the treadmill at my physical therapist’s office, and lasted ten whole minutes! The cardio machines overlooked a parking lot and a highway, but I pretended that it was in the middle of a field so I could live out the just-recovered-from-polio-or-something-and-am-running-with-my-brother-for-the-first-time fantasy. It was pretty great, other than the fact that I have no brother that I could get to run with me. I actually got to run for three minutes the last time I was there, but I wasn’t sure if it was totally pain-free or not, and I don’t feel good about calling three minutes a “run” (refer to chart below).
I’m pretty sure I felt no pain in my shin today, but it’s hard to tell when you’re focusing all of your mental energy on one spot trying to analyze every single sensation that goes through there. The weird part was finally running long enough to feel stuff in other parts of my body. It always takes my body a few minutes to work itself out and loosen up, but with all the not-running I’ve been doing for so long, I forgot about that stuff. It turns out, the rest of my body still exists, and it’s not perfect. The good news is that it’s all a lot more perfect than my left shin has been until recently, so I won’t worry about it too much.
Almost more exciting than running, was talking to my PT about my goals. I’m not aiming for anything crazy right now, but my leg took so long to heal that I had given up on making plans for my future running life altogether. Now I have a solid goal of running a 5k before the end of the year. As soon as that happens, I’ll go back to making my crazy goals that I may or may not achieve, but I feel really good about this one. The plan is to run ten minutes every other day, adding two minutes to the runs every week. After a month or so I can start a 5k training plan!
Is anyone else running a 5k this fall, and have a good one to suggest? I might just do the Run Like Hell 5k since I have a coupon for it, but if I’m ready earlier, I’ll want to do one a little sooner – end of September or into October. I’m also on the lookout for the best 5k training plans. I’ve never officially done a training plan for a 5k, so I could use some input!
Pascal’s so excited that I can run again that it makes him drool a little bit.
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