run

Week Three, Day 1

Tuesday, July 25th, 2023

POST-RUN MORTUM

Running Time: 28 minutes 

Distance Achieved: 1.89 miles 

Tunage: Guilty Pleasures podcast, the podcast that loves what it loves – if you love movies, give them a listen. 

Running Milestone Unlocked: Running in a fucking lightning storm 

Yes, that’s right. 

Today, I ran with the gods. 

I pushed through torrents of rain and danced alongside the bolts of lightning that hurled themselves with mad determination over Jersey. My body was alight with their fiery passion, the thunder, echos of my feet against the pavement below. 

Only, real talk? It was kind of terrifying. I’ve never run in the rain before, and to be fair, it wasn’t raining when I started, but I knew it was going to start raining by the time I got back, but if I didn’t go when I went, then I wouldn’t have been able to run today, and I’m trying really hard to build a habit here, alright? 

It did feel pretty badass, though, when I wasn’t worried about slipping and falling and when the lightning wasn’t so close. 

If I’m being hypercritical – which, me?! Hypercritical?! But she’s given herself so many breaks in the past 😬😒- I’m not thrilled with the distance today. I think I can chalk that up to the fact that I was worried about getting electrocuted through my AirPods¹, and the sidewalks of Riverside Drive are actually terrifyingly slippery when wet. Today was also an interesting day because there was a huge chunk of running in the intervals. So far it’s been like a minute of run, a minute and a half of walk, but today felt a lot longer. I wonder how long it was actually for. 

Ok, so I just checked the app and it was actually ONLY THREE MINUTES OF JOGGING IN THE INTERVALS!? I don’t know if it was because of the rain, or the lightning, or the gale-force winds, but it felt like I was running for a very long time. It was really only three minutes? Fuck. 

Damn. I mean, really, damn. I thought it was like an eight minute stretch. I was also listening to a podcast, which has no kind of cadence to run to, and a song is typically from like 2:30 minutes to maybe 5:25 if we’re dipping our toes into contemporary musical theater, so maybe that was part of it too? 

Wow, really only 3 minutes. 

I feel like I’m making excuses and I don’t love that I’m doing that.

That is disappointing and sad. I wish I knew the kind of progress I should be making. Now, I know that “should” isn’t a very helpful word, but it would be nice to know if I’m on any kind of track, right, wrong, or otherwise. When I Google “how to train for a 5K”, which is just stupid, but here we are, CT5K is the second hit down, so I guess I chose a good one, but still. It would be helpful if my guy Runicorn could tell me time/mile markers? Not that it would make all that much of a difference, I just want to know where I stand, huffing and aching, and I think more than anything, I just know that if not hitting the miles/times that I should be. 

When I google “how long to run a 5K” – again, my Google history is WHILDE right now, y’all – I want to throw my computer and running shoes out the window. Madame G says, “If you finish a 5K in: 12- to 14-minute – You’re an Olympic-level athlete.” Ok, so, nothing to worry about there. “14- to 18-minute – You’re one of the best runners in the world.” Again, I’m so ok with that not being me. “18- to 22-minute – You’re very competitive and faster enough. 22- to 25-minute – You are an average runner.” 

I don’t love that there’s no column after that.

Well, that’s not true, I just had to click into the article for them to cement my shame. 

Apparently for my age range and beginner status, it says that I should be able to run a 5K in around 35:51. If I round up to 36, because #extendyourselfgrace, that means I’ll need to do around a 12-minute mile. 

Ok. I feel like I could maybe hit that. 

But then what if I don’t. Oh fuck, what’s below beginner? What even is that? 

Ok. 

This is fine. 

I have weeks left of this program, and the other day I was at 2.16 miles at 31 minutes, and I walked a good portion of that. I think I will really need to work on getting my endurance up so that I’ll be able to run for longer and hopefully hit that 35/36 minute mark. Only what’s been happening is that now that the running portions are longer, I tire more quickly, and the more tired I become the slower I am. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, endurance. I hear you. 

Oh Runicorn!! What do I do?! Speak to me, your magical wisdom! It should also be noted that Madame G has no column for body size here. So I assume they are referring to beginner runners who are also “in shape,” or, in decent enough shape that the idea of running a 5K doesn’t seem absolutely batshit. 

This is why AI will never fully take over. Because as much as I love my mascot, I wish I had a coach who could tell me if I’m crazy for having 35 minutes as my goal or if they’d be like, “Nah, Bonnio, you got this.” But who has money for a coach? In this economy?! Not I, my friends, not I. So I suppose I must become my own coach and be like, “Nah, Bonino, you fucking GOT this, bb, let’s goooooo!” 

And the thing of it is? I kind of feel like I do got this? It feels weird to say that because I’m only on day 7 of this program, but I kind of missed not running yesterday and Sunday 😱😱😱. I did though. It feels good to have something to look forward to, as much as I can look forward to something I’m still not 100% sold on, but the routine of it is nice. And now that I have this goal, I’m like, fired up in a weird way. Let’s see if this fat little body of mine can do 3.1 miles in 35:51 minutes. I bet I can. Or at least get close to it. 

No. I can. 

Or at least I’m going to try. 

1. Ok, but wouldn’t it have been so cool if like, I had been struck by lightning, but not in a catastrophic or fatal way, but like, in a way that left me like a superhero or something? Do you ever have those thoughts? Where you’re like, wow, what if this spider actually did give me powers, or like, wow, what if this lightning struck me and melted all of my bad fat away leaving me ripped and smoking hot – literally – with white hair and like, violet eyes and no one would fuck with me because if they tried, I could zap them with my lightning abilities only I wouldn’t do that because I would absolutely be a benevolent superhero, you know, one of the good guys, and I’d only unleash my electro-justice™️ on the bad guys? No? Just me? Cool. Cool cool cool. Yeah, no, totally, I wouldn’t want any of that to happen. Psh, not at all… ↩︎