My First Stitch: Couch to 5K Week 6 Day 2

Last week I had two really goods days on my Couch to 5K (C25K) progress. Two days during which it actually seemed doable. Two days during which I there were actual moments when I was thinking about other things besides how much I wanted to stop. Normally, there are zero moments during which I am not thinking about stopping. Okay. I take that back. Sometimes I also contemplate death while running. But, death would stop the running, too, so I feel like it's included under the "I want to stop" umbrella.

One of those 2 magically delicious days was Week 5 Day 3 which included running for 20 minutes straight. 20 minutes. No, really. 20 minutes. Luckily, the universe took pity on me and let that day coincide with the best and most perfect weather in months. Not hot but not cool enough to require an extra layer. It was like rainbows and fairy dust were raining down on me as I ran and, lo, it may have been very hard but still not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. So I did what any completely whacked out female would do and bought myself some compression pants and started contemplating for a whole nanosecond stupid stuff like maybe I should find a half marathon coming up and start training for it. Um. Yeah. Let's slow our roll, girlfriend.

Too bad I didn't slow my roll fast enough and karma decided to step in and teach me a lesson by making Week 6 Day 2 the worst experience in weeks. All I had to do was run for 10 minutes, walk for 3 and run for 10 again. In my brain, where my roll had not yet slowed down, I figured 10 minutes was infinitely doable if I could successfully make it through 20. In a row. Did I mention the 20 minutes was in a row. And that I successfully did it? Because I did.

So why then did I turn into a panting hot mess running for 10 minutes? Makes no sense. And then I got what I can only assume people refer to as a stitch in my side. Although because I am a complete whackazoid, it wasn't so much in my side as it was in front towards the side in a spot I like to think of as directly behind my bottommost right rib.

Naturally, my inner lazy girl thought this stitch meant that I should stop running. But my inner masochist thinks my inner lazy girl is nothing but a stupid whore and felt strongly that I needed to keep going despite the stitch. My inner masochist also did not care that the last 2 minutes of the second 10 minutes coincided with a super steep hill I prefer to hit during my walking cool down.

On I trudged. Looking a hot mess in broad daylight because I'd also successfully overslept and got to do my workout mid morning instead of during the glorious anonymity of the predawn hours I prefer.

My struggle did not improve when the podcasts I normally listen to while running would not load. I listened to music instead and life wasn't nearly as bad when I was trudging to Momma Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J. But there was also a period where I was so obsessively focused on the debate between my inner lazy girl and my inner masochist that I somehow did not notice that I had been jogging to Soulmate by Natasha Bedingfield for over 45 seconds. Have you ever jogged to Soulmate? Perhaps a better question is, has anyone in their right mind ever jogged to Soulmate? Because I would wager they haven't. That is one slow, sappy song that I no doubt downloaded randomly after some sappy montage sequence on the Bachelorette like 7 seasons ago. I'm sure you can imagine how quickly I scrambled to get to my phone to locate something a little more run appropriate. Like say, pretty much every other song I own.

Life improved slightly afterwards. But really, it's all relative when you're spiraling downward into the depths of panting hot mess hell. Plus, any improvement was short lived because that's about the time I noticed I was on a collision course with the aforementioned super steep hill. My innner overly peppy, bleach blond cheerleader pointed out that the super steep hill will never get easier to run up until I actually start running up it. My inner bitter angry wench told her to go stitch that on a pillow and shut the hell up.

And I ran up it. One tiny step at a time. And then it was done. And then my BFF Juliebear just happened to send me this as inspiration not even knowing I was a girl in need of inspiration:

And I was appreciative. Perfect message. Perfect low confidence day to get it. I can live to fight another day!