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i've been following an app to build up my running endurance, and so far it's been going really well.
until last night, that is.
i got to the gym feeling really good and excited for the 30 minute run i had planned. i hopped on a treadmill, turned on my itunes, and got running. about four minutes in, i felt a surge of energy, which boded well for the rest of the run ahead. but not too long after that, my right leg started to feel a little tense in the quad area. i ran through it, hoping to shake it off, and even paused everything for a minute to try to stretch it out.
no go.
by the time i hit two miles, my quad was tight and i was in pain. this run wasn't fun anymore, and the last place i wanted to be was on the treadmill. and so i stopped. i figured that risking injury by running another mile wasn't really worth it, and that i'd try again in the morning.
same side effects occur for not completing your run; image via google
but that didn't stop my brain from guilting me the whole way home. "you could have finished; you gave up too easily" i thought as i shuffled home. when i was home, stretching and drinking water in hopes of alleviating the cramp, i kept telling myself that if i just would have kept running, the pain would have fixed itself. i still don't know if that's true or not. i think my problem was mostly with the fact that i couldn't check that day off of my app just yet, and it majorly bummed me out thinking that i maybe couldn't keep up with the requirements of the program anymore.
i woke up this morning feeling refreshed, and my quad no longer felt tight, so i decided to head back to the gym for a re-do. up on the treadmill again, i turned on my itunes, took a deep breath, and got running. no problems. i finished the 30 minutes without even a leg twinge. so, i'm feeling better about my decision to listen to my body and just consider last night's workout an extra run for the week rather than a fail.
do you ever experience guilt about running? how do you deal with it?
