Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Runnning Hurts

So I'm training for the Des Moines Marathon in October, and I need to get my weight down. I received further confirmation of this today. I was supposed to do a 3-mile training run (as a SHORT workout, for crying out loud), and had to cut it down to a walk and cut it to about a mile and a half, instead.

My left knee felt like someone had left a thumbtack lodged beneath the kneecap on the outside. So there will be conspicuous use of frozen gel packs and ibuprofen in my near future.

But I can completely understand why people would love this activity. Like cycling, there's a rhythm about running when you're doing it well that gives you a sense of peace and helps calm you. But unlike cycling, this stuff really hurts when you're overweight. I don't mean the burning lungs, screaming thighs and stinging eyes. I'm talking about visceral pain of pounding on the pavement for a long time.

I think I'm convincing myself this will be my one and only marathon. If I live that long.

And if anybody has a wheelbarrow, you might want to bring it to the finish line--I'll probably need something to cart myself away at the end.

1 comment:

@JessEsco said...

Saw your guest post on Aunt Becky's blog. I trained for a marathon a couple years ago but managed to fracture my pelvis three weeks before the race.

Moral of the story, training sucks ass. But you can do it. I couldn't imagine doing that long mileage (especially because I mostly trained alone and that is DAMN boring), but you do it. And you'll be so freaking proud you won't know what to do with yourself. Good luck!