Starting From Zero
Earlier this week, I went for my first run in just under two months. I had a great time and felt awesome afterwards—- I wrote a whole blog post about it, you should read it! Today, I went for my second run, and the results were substantially less euphoric. I did the same 1.5 mile course that I ran on Sunday, but whereas Sunday I was holding myself back from going further at the end, today I was huffing and puffing all the way through and was very happy to get around the final turn and shuffle to a stop in my driveway. With the initial burst of positivity from that first run used up, it is clear that I am starting at zero and will need to build myself all the way back up to where I was before.
The last time I started from zero in terms of my running fitness with the summer of 2021, when I was first getting sober curious and starting to make moves toward getting back in shape. I’ve never completely quit running, and even before 2021 I usually went out at least twice a week, but for a long time I was not running with any specific goal in mind, and was not approaching it in enough of a systemized way to produce any results. I was running just for the sake of doing it, and regularly running races that I had no business running (I just wanted the tshirts and the social media clout, to be perfectly honest).
For the three and a half years since June of 2021, I’ve been in some form of continuous training. It took me about six months to get into "half marathon shape,” and I had gotten myself all the way up to full marathon fitness before my injury. I had built my mileage up to somewhere around 35 miles a week, which isn’t an Olympian but is nothing to sneeze at either. Most importantly for me, I had reached aa point where I could do those hard training runs and recover quickly afterward—- one of the hallmarks of my earlier, unserious running was that I could make myself run a half or something, but would then be consigned to the couch for a few days. By October of this year, I could do an 13 mile+ training run, on my own with no crowd support or aid stations, and feel normal again within about 2 hours. It felt great.
And then today, I struggled to run a mile and a half. My feet hurt. I was out of breath. And its not just a physical change—- I wanted to be done running today in a way that I wasn’t used to feeling. Today’s run was not fun.
I don’t think it’s going to take my three years to get back into something resembling the shape I was in before. I also think that part of what was holding me back today was finals week fatigue and the lingering effects of some kind of virus I had over the weekend. And I know that I have the ability to do it, which is a huge part of the process. But it’s going to be a process of stringing together a lot of days where I make the right choices before I start to see the results I’m looking for. I’m going to keep doing the next right thing and not let myself look at the full scale of the challenge, but knowing I’m preparing for my big running roadtrip next summer is also a helpful bit of motivation—- and, if you’ve made it this far, you can use the Donate button above to make a contribution and help keep me inspired to keep working! Thanks!
