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Defeated...then extra-defeated
Aug. 21st, 2009 01:07 pmOkay, so...I perpetrated an epic fail today with my Couch to 5K workout. I totally bailed halfway through. Ordinarily, when I'm exercising and I start to feel I'm reaching my limit, I generally get the message from my lungs. This isn't a smoker thing, by the way; this goes all the way back to when I used to run in grade school. When I was reaching the end of my capacity to exercise, I always felt like my muscles were okay to keep going, but I just couldn't suck in air fast enough. That's the sensation I've always associated with being wiped out by exercise: the feeling that I just couldn't bring in oxygen fast enough to support my body's activities.
This was not the case today. I was just gearing up for the second half of my run, and I just felt like my legs simply couldn't take it. I was breathing hard, but I wasn't at the exhaustion point of breathing hard. No, the weak point was definitely my legs. I can't remember ever feeling like that before. I mean...I feel like that when I'm pushing my strength, but not my stamina. Bummer.
So I was doing my walk of shame back to the starting point so I could head home, and I was thinking about what had happened. The Couch to 5K program has you work out three times per week; they say it's important to give your body a chance to recover between workouts. Maybe I didn't take that seriously enough, as I did do some semi-serious swimming yesterday, and I don't normally set out to get much exercise between Couch to 5K workouts. So...that might have had something to do with it. I also didn't eat anything before I went out for the run this morning. And while that in itself is not unusual, it's unusual with this strenuous of a workout, so...that's another possibility. I didn't think it was the heat, mostly because I was running earlier in the day today than usual, so it was a little bit cooler plus there was a great breeze blowing, so...I felt okay heat-wise.
Anyway. It was around this time of walking back and being lost in my own thoughts that I was passed by another jogger; a woman in her 60s jogged by me with her iPod blasting "Irreplaceable" by Beyoncé. At that moment, it just felt like everything snapped into focus. There I was, dragging my sorry fat ass back home after failing a simple jogging workout, and I get juiced by a woman twice my age who is not only in better shape than me, but also apparently listens to more current popular music. It's a hard world out there, friends.
This was not the case today. I was just gearing up for the second half of my run, and I just felt like my legs simply couldn't take it. I was breathing hard, but I wasn't at the exhaustion point of breathing hard. No, the weak point was definitely my legs. I can't remember ever feeling like that before. I mean...I feel like that when I'm pushing my strength, but not my stamina. Bummer.
So I was doing my walk of shame back to the starting point so I could head home, and I was thinking about what had happened. The Couch to 5K program has you work out three times per week; they say it's important to give your body a chance to recover between workouts. Maybe I didn't take that seriously enough, as I did do some semi-serious swimming yesterday, and I don't normally set out to get much exercise between Couch to 5K workouts. So...that might have had something to do with it. I also didn't eat anything before I went out for the run this morning. And while that in itself is not unusual, it's unusual with this strenuous of a workout, so...that's another possibility. I didn't think it was the heat, mostly because I was running earlier in the day today than usual, so it was a little bit cooler plus there was a great breeze blowing, so...I felt okay heat-wise.
Anyway. It was around this time of walking back and being lost in my own thoughts that I was passed by another jogger; a woman in her 60s jogged by me with her iPod blasting "Irreplaceable" by Beyoncé. At that moment, it just felt like everything snapped into focus. There I was, dragging my sorry fat ass back home after failing a simple jogging workout, and I get juiced by a woman twice my age who is not only in better shape than me, but also apparently listens to more current popular music. It's a hard world out there, friends.