#7 Third day of Running

A squirrel darted pass me and the morning sky was gloomy. I was running at this hill park where I could get an eagle view of the city I live from afar. As I ran, the cool breeze speed along with me - a friendly companion - soothing my face and soul with its fresh moist. The birds pecking the grass at the trackside scampered away as I trodded on the jogging track. I felt fast like i was in an ironman suit ( when in real time I was as fast as Spongebob's pet snail, but lets not dwell further on that matter).

This is why I like running eventhough nobody runs in the family. This is the reason why I would still returned to the track after many attempts and injuries. Running is all about overcoming your own limitation. Running outdoor, I also have this opportunity to dwell in my individual self, the beautiful world, and the Creator of us. After every running session, I always returns to civilization with refreshed soul.

Running is all about individual. However, as a female runner, I need to consider about my safety. Luckily enough there are many people jogging at the park. Saw this man around 50-ish jogging in the pace as fast as mine. He looked like a kind retired grandfather who has received bad results on his health report book last week and decided to start the exercise regiment this week. Marking him as my 'guard', I kept a stone throw distance and jogged behind him all the time.

Overall, for today I improved my pace time and did this :

4 minutes run, 1 minute walk
7 rounds

#6 Second Training

Was drifted away and away from the training schedule due to Eid celebrations (alasan!) I only started the second training today.

Today's running plan :
3 minutes run
1 minute walk
10 rounds

Except for a gorgeous morning, I didnt met any other running soul - however, I passed on many cyclists. Okay, not. Correction. Many cyclists cycle past me.

While passing a row of bungalows, saw this persian cat that was about to answer the nature's call. When I autobeeline to him, he meowed and was very friendly when I patted his head. This is probably a very mundane thing to report to you, but is a very important thing to me. My alarm hitting me to start running, i cant stay longer to pet that gorgeous being. Bye bye cat. I hope I ll see you again in next two days. If you happen to have a single, handsome owner, drag him along next time.

Moving forward, about 4 weeks left before the event....

#1 Learning to Run

Congratulations to myself I decided to start learning on running again. The running shoes seems happy to see the light again after months of hibernating in the car's boot ( which woman dont have all kind of shoes in her car, you tell me ).

I started running, on and off since last year where i braved myself to enter a 10k running event. I started training for one month then stopped and ended ditching up the event. The reason is not due to lost motivation, or laziness, but the knees. I have a history of right knee injury. Probably I didnt do the training right causing a big stress to the knees, under my heavy weight. Because I care a lot about my knees, I stopped running altogether to focus on recovery.

During that months of idle period, I tried losing weight to reduce impact on the knees by moving lot. Like using the stairs. There is also this ongoing effort on developing good eating habits. Post Ramadan- I managed to control my eating habits and loss 4 kg since the first day I started running. Not much but at least it is still a relief to the knee. Imagine buying 4 kgs of sugar. And walking while carrying the sugar. That much of weight, now I dont have to run with it.

To start running again, I found another training plan which focus on "learning on running" "speed dont matter" "finish a 10K run injury-free". It is a walk/run program with the idea, at the end of the program, the run portions mesh with the walk portions so that my knee, my body and my mind hardly know the differences.

I did my first session this evening. It started easy with

Warm up : walk slow & easy 5 minutes.
Run 1 minute. Walk 2 minutes. 8 times.

This was done via route of circling the new housing environment nearby. The scenery is pretty and peaceful, less cars, less people and about only half of the new houses are occupied with tenants. As I jogged by the sidelines, there are few families with visitors celebrating their raya in their brand new 1.6 million ringgits house ( I googled ). Some of them looked at me from afar. As a naturally shy person, I tried to ignore them and maintaining what is in my opinion - a slow and easy jogging pace ( from their view its probably a slow and easy crawling snail ).

After I m done, i feel a slight kink of soreness in my right knee. I dont sweat much  and feel i could do more which is the point of the training, so we could always look forward to the next session. Nothing serious, but I think I have to find that cool thing sportsmen always wear on their knee ( knee-something the name ).

The next session is on Tuesday. The training plan is on every other day so to allow time for recovery to the body. Since I am blogging from my mobile device, I have plan on continuous writing my running journey.