Running Pains, Asthma and Pacing Issues

I woke up Wednesday and my legs were really feeling the running from Monday and Tuesday, so I decided to call it a rest day.  My calves, shins and quads were all super tight, and quads were a bit sore.  Since the major goal of 2011 is no injuries I won't go for a run if my legs are already hurting or are super stiff, as I'm kind of prone to running injuries.  Better to take a rest day and be able to run tomorrow than to run today and not be able to run for a week or two. 

I then made the plan to wake up Thursday and go for a run in the morning.  I use to be a super early morning person, but not sure what happened as I really have been struggling the last year to wake up at all in the mornings.  Is it age? Change in diet? Change of stress levels? I don't know, but I'm going to get my morning workouts back! And yes. I woke up Thursday morning at 4:45am, ready to go, the alarm went off and I was ready.  But again, my legs weren't so happy with that idea.  So I decided I would run after work instead.  But I didn't go back to sleep.  I need to get use to this waking up early thing, so I stayed awake and puttered around the house to keep myself awake and get ready for the day.

After work I did run.  My legs were feeling a bit better, just a bit heavy at this point, but better.  I headed out to Memorial Park and headed out for the run.  I did the three miles in just over 27 minutes.  Still really slow for me.  But there was lots of walking involved, which means I was probably starting off way too fast, since it's just over 9 minute miles with long walking periods mixed in.  I need to get better at pacing myself, more on this in a bit.  I also started to have some breathing issues.  It was hard to breath out there for some reason, and it's been a long time since I've had asthma issues while running. 

I've had asthma since I was two.  Before it was cool to have it, I'm a trend setter like that you know?  And I never had a daily medicine, just emergency inhalers growing up.  Several years ago, I got put on some daily meds and it helped quite a bit, but I stopped with it last year due to needing new prescriptions and needing to find a new doctor.  Unfortunately, my current medical insurance really sucks and so it's expensive to go to doctors and such. But I know if I want to make the most of this athletic stuff, I really need to get my lungs under control.  So, I will be looking for a good doctor for that, and see what I can do to get all that dealt with.

After the run, I was still having some breathing issues and coughing a bit.  Today, I wake up in a similar state, and I'm now worried I'm getting sick.  Hopefully I can fend this off quickly and keep moving forward.

Back to the pacing issues.  From the people that I know, it seems like when they are running, they find a groove and just start running with it, and know what their pace is.  Everyone has a built in metronome I believe.  This allows them to keep beat with songs, create new beats, etc.  I have a broken one.  I struggle to keep beat in songs, which made it very hard for me to dance, but also makes it hard for me to keep a steady cadence when running and biking.  Because of this, I wear myself out faster than I should.  I start off too fast, too slow, change pace, speed up, slow down, all the while trying to find that sweet spot where I can just go forever.  


When I was really consistently training I was closer to having it figured out, but after a couple of years of no consistent training, I've totally lost my cadence keeper.  Now I am struggling to refind it, which is why I think I also don't like running.  It just wears me out too fast.  I think if I can find my pace, I can then not worry about what's going on and just get into a zone and go.  Yes. I think this is why I don't like running.  


But enough of that, and this morning I woke up feeling not too bad. I probably could have gone for a run but had to get to work early since I'm leaving work early to go camping this weekend.  So, I don't see myself hitting my 5 runs this week, but I'm OK with that.  It's an over all goal of 2011, not a goal of the first week of the new year!  As long as I can mange to hit that goal for the majority of the year, it will be a successful year for this goal.