Note: I have no idea why Nike+ isn’t showing the pretty green bar for Sunday’s run. It appears as though the totals are correct, though.

I took a rest day on Monday to go check out the new Music City Center. Although it turned out to not be a lot of “rest” because I chose to wear heels and after all that walking, I was pretty sore AND had a blister on my right pinkie toe.

Which is why on Tuesday it was the first day in recent memory that I’ve actually had to force myself to go run. Normally I look forward to it. But I grumbled to myself as I put on my running clothes and headed out the door. Then grumbled through the first half mile. And the entirety of the first mile. Then I got a side cramp because I forgot my water bottle (despite having actually hydrated well all day). I massaged it out as best I could and then for the last half mile, I actually felt good (although sore).

On Wednesday, I was still a little sore, but I went out to the greenway to try to do the next day of Couch to 10k. I am still not used to the humidity. I know that when it’s humid, you are supposed to slow down. Yet I am horrible at being able to slow down once I’ve started on a pace. In fact, I found myself running FASTER than normal (because if I can’t run a 9 minute mile in perfect conditions, why would I be able to when I can’t adequately cool myself down?). You can understand then how I wore myself out before the end of the 25 minutes I was supposed to run and ended up taking quite a few walk breaks. Supposedly it takes two weeks to acclimate to the heat and humidity. We will see.

With this in mind, I waited a little later to go out on Thursday (around 7pm). I was able to get in a good ten minute warm up. I almost started developing a side stitch during my warmup, which made me kind of nervous. It went away when I started the run and came back around 1.5 miles, but it wasn’t the horrible, debilitating stitch I usually get, so I was able to run through it. I believe the cooler weather plus the fact that I was running in a new location helped me to not only finish the 25 minutes without walking, but I went actually beyond to 27:30! I almost pushed myself to do a whole 5k without walking (I think I could have done it…what’s another 6 minutes or so?), but I wanted to do a long run the next day so didn’t want to push too hard. Still, I got my second best time on 2 miles (the best being at the race last Saturday) at 22:01, and I was being pretty consistent with my pacing (although a few times I caught myself trying to go too fast and had to slow down).

Of course, despite my experimentation with going out later, I didn’t learn. On Friday I headed out right after work, and it was hot. I was planning on putting in around four miles by attempting to slightly jump ahead on Couch to 10k to the first day of week 9, just to see how I’d do. This involves four repetitions of running for ten minutes and walking for one. I made it through the first two repetitions without issues, but by the start of the third, I was on a stretch of the greenway out in the hot sun. And I was out of water. And sore. So I walked way more than I should through the third repetition and didn’t even finish the fourth, choosing to stop after I’d achieved 3.5 miles. My right calf was super sore, so I decided to go home and ice it and take Saturday off for a rest day.

I thought the rest did me well until I started my run on Sunday. My warm up was horrible, just as it’s been for the past few runs. I started getting a side stitch and my right calf was sore again. But after I finished warming up, it went amazing. I was supposed to run 25 minutes without walking, and I ended up doing 30! I paced really well too, coming about a minute per mile down on each split (~12:30 on my first mile, 11:30 on my second, and 10:30 on the last 0.6). Go me!