Day 10: Opposition in All Things

I think while I'm on the treadmill about things like "what am I going to title my blog entry for this one?" and today inspiration struck several times.  After writing that entry earlier today about how running is a great place to escape from stress and frustration, I was shown the other side of that coin on my run today, and that is what inspired this title.


First of all, I was somewhat stood up by my running buddy.  No biggie.  I was glad he told me so I didn't have to wait on him.


About two minutes into my run, my mom called.  At that point, I just stop the treadmill and talk to her.  Some people are worried when their parents call them late at night; I get worried when my mom, a tax accountant, calls me during the day prior to April 15th.  Turns out my grandmother had chest pains this morning, and they've determined that it was congestive heart failure.  She's 95 and has been ready to die for years now, but that doesn't make the possibility of her impending death any easier to hear. I guess I should be grateful I was at the gym so I could rapidly dispel the extra stress that caused rather than just sitting at home as I was tempted to do.


I restarted the treadmill, and just as I was getting into my stride, an ex-roommate called, which I ignored so as not to disrupt the C25K program on my phone that pauses while you talk even if you're still walking/running.  But it jarred me a little for my phone to randomly start ringing just after hanging up with someone else.


Then, probably the worst thing that happened run-wise is that I touched the red emergency thingy on the treadmill, and it came loose, which stopped the treadmill.  Like, not on pause.  Stopped.  Erased.  So...  I noted the mileage when I got to the mid-way mark (which the app announces), subtracted that from my final mileage, and multiplied by two.  Best I could do to salvage mileage.


Amazingly, run-wise it wasn't too bad; of course, that could be related to the minute or two it took me to figure out how to restart the treadmill, which translated to extra recovery time...  It was literally over before I knew it.  That said, I'll probably stay on week 3 at least a few more days because week 4 intimidates me.  The "short" runs become 3 minutes, and the long runs are 5 minutes.  I can't imagine myself running for five straight minutes at this point.  Not that I don't think I'll ever do it, but week 3 is still challenging enough, and I really am going to just slow it down a bit this time.


Oh, and guess what?  I'm almost at 20 miles!  I think at 50 we should have some sort of celebration!


My workout today was:
Week 3, Day 3
1.72 miles in 28 minutes, 2.0% incline
5 minute warmup (3.5 mph)
90 seconds running (4.5 mph)
90 seconds walking (3.5 mph)
3 minutes running
3 minutes walking
(repeat 2x)
5 minutes of walking (cool-down)
Total Distance: 18.75 miles