Much like my cycling form, my running ability – which was not good to begin with – has clearly suffered from recent problems.
That didn’t stop me from thinking I’d throw out a casual 6km run without any issues. In hindsight, a silly idea given where I’m at physically right now.
Anyway, I started off – after remembering that I need to do stretching before running – with a 3 minute light walk, then a minute at 7 kph, and then a minute at 9 kph (if memory serves) before jumping into 10.5 kph.
After a couple of kilometres I was like, yeah I am amazing, let’s bump this up further.
I went up to 11 kph, not able to remember where I was at prior to being out for a few weeks. In hindsight I think it was 10.8 kph, but I honestly can’t remember.
Whatever, by about the 3km marker I was developing a solid stitch. I tried to motor through it, mostly because I’d set myself the 6km run goal, but it wasn’t happening. It was too painful.
As a result I ended up knocking it back down to 5 kph – my fast walk – and walking for a few minutes, until I felt the stitch had subsided. I wasn’t sure if I could carry on, but I tried – this time keeping the treadmill to a more sedate 7 kph, bumping up to 9 kph, then finally going up to 10 kph.
From there I finished out the run.
I’d say I’m a bit disappointed, but the reality of it is that I very likely overdid it. I am not a particularly good runner. I got lapped by one guy at least 4 times, probably more. Even so, I should have been more sensible about this – doing the whole run at 10.5 kph and working my way back up slowly over several weeks.
Ah well, another lesson learned.
Can’t say I’ve any regrets in having done the run though.
