About a week and a half, I went for a jog, and I couldn’t go farther than a quarter mile without stopping. Not because I was out of breath but because my quads felt so heavy that I couldn’t lift them anymore. To put it in layman’s terms, it sucked. It was one of those feelings where I hoped no one had seen me stop, and I was pretty depressed to know where I stood with my conditioning.
Mentally, I’m at a point that I’m tired of feeling like I do and will fight through the pain and struggles. This is huge for me. Without being ready mentally, I know that I could not follow physically. So today, I decided to go for a jog again. The route overlooks the ocean in Long Beach and about 2 miles long. So it’s 4 miles to the end and back. I was a little hesitant before the jog because I remember how difficult it was a week and a half ago. I decided to go for a walk jog. Jog when I can and walk when I need to. So I started off walking for the first 3 blocks to warm up, and I then started my jog. I knew, if I jogged at the pace of my last jog, my body would give out soon. I decided to take a much slower pace. Slower than what I used to jog but faster than walking. My goal was to keep the pace as long as I could.
I focused my sights on the ground about 5 feet in front of me. When I looked up, I mentally got more tired just seeing how much farther I had to go, and if I thought someone was looking at me, I would pick up the pace to show that I’m in good shape. But this would throw me off my pace and get me tired more. Being this out of shape not only gets me tired more, but it’s also more difficult to recover when I exert more energy. So, I kept my head down and kept on going. I also played slow songs on my iphone. I was afraid that if I played fast music with a beat that I would want to jog faster. I’m just not there yet. I even need to work up to fast music.
At the half-way point, I was pretty pleased that I made it without stopping. The slow pace helped a lot. My quads felt okay, but I could feel it in my hip joints. It was the kind of pain that comes from non-use. It was sore, but it was the good kind of pain. I stopped at the half-way point for about 1-2 minutes to take a quick breath and take a picture of the view of my route. It’s hard to enjoy the view when you’re struggling. I was dreading the jog back, but to my surprise, I actually made it all the way back. I walked the last 3 blocks home to cool down. I was tired. I estimate that I jogged about 3 miles of the 4 mile route. Because I was able to jog most of the route, it not only made me feel a little better about myself, but I also want to do this again soon.