Just in the Nick of Time

I went running on Sunday. 3.5 miles. Now, if you follow my blog, you know this isn’t anything crazy spectacular for me. I’ve been running up around 3-4 miles regularly. Or I was. And then I went on hiatus. Actually I went into “too much stuff to do” overdrive and started putting myself last.

I didn’t run for two weeks. Not only did I not run, I didn’t do anything, exercise-wise. By Sunday, I was seriously jonesing to move.

However, after two weeks of nothing, I was worried that I would have lost all the stamina I’d gained over the past year. In the two weeks that I didn’t do anything, I kept meaning to get to the gym, especially to run. Or to get outside to run. There have been obstacles. Rain, wind, freezing cold. I’m a fair weather girl. Errands, appointments, late nights at work. I forgot how easy it is to put exercise at the bottom of the list.

I’m not training for a race right now, so it was easy to put off getting out there to move with so much else to do. And as week one turned into week two, I started to wonder if I would even be able to run like I was running before. It always seems to take less time to break down endurance than it does to build it up.

Finally on Sunday, I sucked it up. I got geared up and went to the gym to renew my acquaintance with my old friend the treadmill. I figured after not running for two weeks, I’d just start off slow with two miles. But two miles turned into 3 and then into 3.5. I took a couple of walking breaks, but not nearly as much as I thought I would need. The run felt good. I felt good. I worked out with trainer Jen last night and plan to hit the treadmill again at some point tomorrow.

I’m back. I think that Sunday run was just in the nick of time. If I’d let it go another couple of days or weeks, who knows? Maybe I wouldn’t go back. Nah, I like it too much. I would. But I’m glad I didn’t wait to find out.

Tags: exercising during the holidays, Fitness, Running, treadmill