A Hard Dose of Reality

I hit the Hanging Rock Trail last night, and for the first time since starting back doing something on August 1, I went straight into running with no walking beforehand. I know I said I was going to continue to walk to loosen everything up, but I felt good enough that I didn’t think it would be a problem, and it wasn’t. My ankle/achilles is still an issue, but it seems to be getting better by the day now that I’m using it on a daily basis and back doing my treatment routine. Additionally, my foot is a non-issue at this point, and unless something changes, I don’t even plan on mentioning it any more.

That said, I was feeling pretty good about things as I started my run and headed out the trail alongside Kessler Mill Road. It didn’t take long for me to get a rude awakening, however, in the form of my first mile split, a blazing 8:17. OUCH! What’s more is it didn’t feel that slow or easy. In my defense, I started shortly after it had stopped raining and the sun was peeking out a little, making the conditions sauna-like, but still, the watch doesn’t lie. 8:17 is 8:17, and when that pace doesn’t feel easy, you know you’ve got a long way to go to get fit. From there I proceeded to work it down some to hit the second mile in 7:34. I felt better about that and thought maybe I was just slow getting going. However, the third mile is where my lack of fitness and the extremely warm, humid conditions really started to work on me, leading to a split of 7:49. I managed to close with a 7:38 and don’t even want to think about what my heart rate was at that point. I can tell you it was probably higher than it’s been in a lot of tempo runs and maybe even a few races. The final summary: 4 miles in 31:18 (7:49 mile/avg).

I knew my first run with no watering down of the pace from walking would look ugly, but I’m not sure I was prepared for it to be this bad. What’s more is, based on how hard last night felt, I’m thinking I may even have to slow down a bit until I build some more fitness. Still, I’m not too discouraged. I know I’m more out of shape than I’ve been in the last 15 years, and it’s going to take a long time to get it back, especially when I’m going to try to do things the right way this time and not rush anything. Still, if I stick to the plan and build some consistency, it WILL come back (at least I hope it will). I guess the point of this post is to give myself a benchmark for where I started and show just how easy it is to go from running 16 miles at a 6:46 avg (one of my last runs before getting hurt) to not being able to do even one at that pace. As I chronicle my comeback and the remaking of myself as a runner, I have no plans of hiding the ugly moments, knowing in a few months I’ll look back and laugh at how slow I was and how hard it felt. In the meantime, I will slog on, climbing the huge mountain that is before me.