Week 1, Day 1: Blisters and Hills

I had a lot of anxiety about my first run. First of all, I the plan was to get up at 6am, be back by 7.

That sucks.

Second, I was going to be outside. In town. Where there are other people.

That too sucks.

I like working out in private. It's a very solitary thing to me. I feel very self conscious doing it, and the prospect of being in public only made it harder to self motivate.

I'm talking serious anxiety.

Which kinda melted away when I took in a cool breath of air and I saw the orange morning clouds and the blue behind.

Down the corner from me is a student I know. He's very involved and he was standing on his porch in a suit, checking the time. I startled him when I said hi. After all I was in a sweatshirt with the hood up, and besides, what was I doing out at 6:30 anyway?

The first week is three days of the following: a 5 minute walking warm-up followed by 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds of walking, which alternate for 20 minutes. During the warm up I was itching to start running. I was ready.

Running felt... effortless. Really. I mean it felt good. That is, until I ran out of flat land.

At some point I had to go up or down a hill. Both suck. Uphill really kicked my ass and the downhill, well, that sucked because it's just hard. Jarring.

When I read reviews of these shoes online, people were amazed at how they could feel everything on the ground. The textures and everything. I was not impressed in this regard, and I wondered why until realized that I've been wearing the same pair of shoes pretty much daily for the past year and a half, and the soles are wafer thin. I guess I've been practicing.

They say your feet will be sore and tired because they're going to be used to the support of shoes, which lead to weak foot muscles. My feet feel fine, except for the blisters (which I suppose are to be expected). It's my calves which are tired (which is also to be expected, since they're absorbing the body's shock). I had a lot of meetings to walk between today and believe me, I took my time getting to each one.

My spiffy heart rate watch worked the whole time and it was cool to see where my heart-rate was.

I wish I had a flatter place to run, but there's nowhere to go that isn't a drive. It's almost time to pop some blisters, but for now, check out this kicks man.







I was going to get a pair in black, or at least brown, to attract the least amount of attention possible, but really I like the blue pair the best. I just wouldn't have had the guts to buy the blue ones if they weren't the only pair left. On a related note, I'd like a percentage of any pools that open up to bet on the date I get beat up on account of these.