Ron The Runner

To get over My fear of running outdoors I searched for a route that would be all trail, or at least not right in town, This is a route I had thought about doing last fall. The First 6 miles are Trail after that it's Country road. It took me a bit to get used to pacing myself outside, My previous attempt at an outdoor run I went out way to fast and was out of gas after one mile! I went out at 8am just after sunrise is was in the 40's and sunny, I saw lots of deer in the woods and out in the middle of nowhere a few houses. The first 4 miles or so were pretty easy then the trail got hilly and some soft sand. At mile 6 out so I was out on the road, a few cars passed me and I didn't have a panic attack, so that was good :P I brought My water bottle with me filled with powerade and I had some sports beans.

Right about mile nine I came up on this.

Yes those are shoes hanging from the tree !

It was nice to finally get outside for a run, the fresh air and scenery were nice. I am looking forward to going out again, most likely this Sunday for 5 miles on the trails.

I am VERY self conscious about running outdoors, In fact I am extremely embarrassed to be outside or around people at all. Running I might as well be waving my arms around screaming look at me. I have done 90% of my running on the treadmill. Over the winter I have had an excuse (the weather) for not running outside, as spring got closer I started daydreaming about running outside, imagining running all the roads around here etc... I signed up for a few races to (something I hate) I tried running outside and I just couldn't get out the door, half way down the driveway was as far as I got, that's how great my embarrassment is. Today I went and bought some running pants (tights were way to embarrassing for me) I sat here for two hours wearing my running clothes building up to going for a run. On the treadmill my short run is 5 miles, I told myself outside I will just run 3 miles, Once I got out and was going I said OK just 2 miles.... by the time I got to 1/4 mile I knew I was at the end of the road. I looked at my garmin and I was running 7:45 pace per mile, and this felt embarrassingly slow to me ! On the treadmill my easy pace is 11:05 per mile tempo runs at 9:38 per mile. so My HR on this little run is sky high over 180 already, I tried going slower 8:00 per mile pace was as slow as I could manage to go outside and I was very self conscious at running what felt like a crawl. At about 1/2 mile I had to stop and walk for a bit, I was going to catch my breath and try and complete my 2 mile route. I started again and it wasn't long before I gave up and turned around. 2 miles might as well of been 26.2, I am so worried, embarrassed and self conscious outside that I just can't run slow and I am not strong enough to run at a speed I am comfortable with..

As soon as I started trying to run outside and scheduled some races running lost all fun for me... I really wish I could run outside, right now I just want to crawl in a hole and die...

Here is the HR data from my barely 1mile outdoor run.

All of my bitching and complaining about nothing being close to me well finally a race in my own backyard ! The First ever Higgins Lake Sunrise Run (Half Marathon, 10k, 5k 1 Mile fun run) I am so excited, it's in a beautiful area right next to one of the best lakes in the country.

Info taken from active.com

I decided on a half marathon and it's 5 weeks away! I know I can run that distance the question is what time can I do it in? Ideally I want to finish in 2 hours or less, with 5 weeks to train I am not so sure that's possible. I used the runners world smart coach to come up with a plan. Below is the plan I came up with, it feels like it's possible for me to run that plan, not easy but possible...

I have two races on my schedule so far March 27th and one on June 19th.

http://www.active.com/running/flushing-mi/flushing-township-half-marathon-and-5k-runwalk-2010

http://higginslakesunriserun.com/

One week of not smoking and back to running complete, I ran 13.1 miles total this week. A long way for the 35+ miles a week I was averaging but not bad considering. I had a total of 5 runs and I dreaded every one of them. I miss the days when running was fun and I had to force myself to take a rest day. If I can't find a way to make it fun again I won't be doing it much longer, maybe as the weather improves I can find some trails to run on and if I am lucky a running partner! I think that's to much to hope for, we are the 5th fattest state in the nation here, something like that anyway...

Any sugestions for making it fun again ?