Starting All Over Again

A week ago, I laced up my shoes, swallowed my pride, and went on my first run in over 6 months. It was death. DEATH.

For some of you who may not know my history, I've been running either competitively or leisurely ever since freshman year of high school, and come to think of it, have probably never taken more than a month's sabbatical from the sport. Even after those 'short' breaks, getting back into it is pretty painful, and here I am, almost starting from scratch. So why even go through the pain in the first place, you ask? Well, there's just something about the feeling of getting your blood flowing, being immersed fresh air, seeing a place (quicker than walking) and having the sense of rejuvenation after a workout. Being sedentary all day just makes my mind go to mush, therefore I run.

Luckily, I now live a bit closer to my favorite place to jog, the Luxembourg Gardens, but even getting there's a whole mile away. Sheesh, and we used to run a mile just to warm up for track practice back in the day, and here I am fretting that I'll barely make it to the park! Well, I made it alright, but seriously wanted to keel over. I stretched a bit, then walked most of the gardens. Catching my breath here and there, I'd start up again, but that would only last about 30 seconds or so. I  started having those god-awful flashbacks of a 14-year-old me on a treadmill trying to train for the JV cross country team, barely being able to do more than 10 minutes at a time. Ugh. God, was that hell.

For the next two days, my legs were sorer than ever. Somehow, I was recently able to do a 10 mile hike in Crete, yet be less sore than 15 minutes of running. Man, our bodies are strange beasts. 

To try and work out the aches, I went again two days later, this time walking to the park before running it with the hope that I could do a whole loop of the place before forcing myself to stop. And when I finished the loop, completely ready to puke, I realized I had only run about 10 minutes. Wow. So disheartening. I eventually forced myself to run 10 minutes more once catching some breath, then had a lazy 30 min walk back home with stares from the crazy dressed-up french people (yes, everyone out always seems to look dressed up, nice, whatever) probably saying to themselves "why does this crazy American girl do this? she looks like hell and looks stupid in her frumpy workout clothes." Well guys, at least I feel better about myself when I come home, de-frump, and face you crazy french people each day. ha, or something like that.

So yes, to all you out there trying to motivate yourselves to get to get off the couch and just work out for a few minutes a day for god's sake, I'm here with ya, starting from scatch, feeling every ache and pain that comes along with the territory. Power to us all.

A bit of a tour around the park...