Making My Goal

Over the winter, I ran on the treadmill. Fairly regularly, although I know I took a few two week breaks here and there. By the time spring came around, I'd managed to do a 5k treadmill run. My first 5k ever! It was awesome, adrenaline pumping, and emotional. I definitely cried.
Come warm weather, I was anxious to be outside, to run in the sun and feel the wind. The first time I got out, I could barely run one kilometer. I was so incredibly discouraged. I cried here, too, but they were not happy tears. I kept running, and had a lot of discouraging runs. I didn't realize how much harder it would be to run outside. Harder, yes, but not that much. I made it a goal to run be able to do 5k outside by the end of the summer, and if possible, I really wanted to enter a 5k race somewhere.

Not me, but those are the shoes I run in.

All of that fell by the wayside when I got pregnant, and then even further away when I miscarried. It took me months of saying, "I really need to run," before I finally got back out there. Boy and I even bought a jogging stroller so we could run together and it still took us several weeks before we used it.
When we finally got our act together and got on the road, I was discouraged. Again. I practically passed out from lack of oxygen trying to get to one kilometer, while Boy was jogging beside me, talking as normally as if he was standing still. Ohmygosh, I felt so demoralized. It sucked.
We did another run or two before falling off the wagon again for a week or so. When we started up again it was all a bit easier, and I kept significantly increasing the amount I could do with each run, filling our 3k with more and more running and less walking.  It was nice to feel like I was finally getting somewhere, but the days have been getting significantly colder here and so many of them are rainy. The nice days for running outside may be coming to an end soon and then I would be back on the treadmill inside.
This morning it was chilly, but the weather was nice, so Boy and I headed out. I hadn't run in four days, and felt tired. I knew I was going slower than usual. On my last run I'd done 2k before walking and I wasn't sure I was going to make it that far today. I got to 1.5 and wanted to stop, but realized I didn't need to, so I just kept going. Two kilometers ends just before a big hill, but I decided I wanted to try to keep going up it, and then I knew I really wanted to do the 3k straight through, instead of with a walk break in the middle like I'd done last time. So I kept going. And I did it. My legs felt wobbly and I knew that old people with walkers could easily outpace me at the speed I was going, but I was running.
Boy decided that we were going go to 4k instead of that being enough for today. I could walk for a while, but then we were running again. Um, no thanks. I felt kind of pissed at how he just decided that for me. Um, I did good today, thankyouverymuch. But then I walked. And realized that I could run again. Probably to four, so why not?
We're going and I'm doing ok, and suddenly I think, "F**k this. If I'm going to do keep going, than I'm going to keep going. I'm going to run 5k today."
I knew it might be the last day we'd be outside running, at the very least for a while, since it's supposed to cold and rainy all week. Maybe it wouldn't be straight through, since I needed a 350m walk break, but when I got to the end, I was going to be able to say I ran five kilometers on the road.
And I did.

It wasn't exactly my goal since I'd been hoping for one continuous run, but today I ran 3k, walked, and than ran another 2k. And I sure as heck am going to count it. I made my goal to run 5k outside by the end of summer! Well, close enough.