Memorial Park Run

I've been close to this park for some time now, but I haven't gotten there just yet. On Saturday, the weather was beautiful and I decided it was time to head over for a morning run. My plan was to run a mile again. When I got there, I did some stretching and some workouts, including 50 crunches, 30 side body crunches each, the navy seal ab cruncher (that's what I call it and it's holding on to the bar, while you bring your legs down to 6 inches off the ground and holding it there for 50 seconds...did this 3 times), toe raises, arm raises (3 reps of 30), and then squats (3 reps of 20) between each arm raise. A man said that I was doing good and then we talked about my injury. I wished the man good luck and went on my way. I tried to do the incline sit up thing, but my boney spine doesn't work on those benches (it hurts). This was the same for situps.

For the first time, I went the opposite way than I have normally done on this run. The thought process was that this is a 3 mile run and I wanted to be close to my car if I have issues. So, I started at the 3 mile marker for my run and figured I would turn around at the 1 mile marker. The people weren't as smiley and happy to see me like at Bear Creek Park last week. These were more serious runners. I did notice that there were alot of children there, which made it difficult to concentrate when there is crying all the time. I think I might like the evening runs better. I also noticed that there are mile markers going both ways, which I have never seen before (probably because I never went in this direction).

My run lasted to 0.5 mile marker before I had to stop; however, this is up for debate. It could actually be at the 0.75 mile marker, because I think I missed a mile marker (you will read later) and it took forever to get to the 0.5 mile marker. I was out of breath, my ankle was hurting, and I got a side cramp, which were the main reasons for stopping. I walked to the 1.25 mile marker before I picked up the run again and turned around. I ran to the 0.5 mile marker, stopped for a walk, and then decided to run a little after the 0.25 mile marker back to the 3 mile marker where I would finally stop. However, some time, I found the 0.25 mile marker on my run that I thought I had already passed. So, somewhere I miscalculated.

My thought process during this whole time was me rationalizing why it was ok and to be proud that I only ran 0.75 miles instead of 1 mile like last week. I was saying that it's good to listen to my body, because my ankle hurt pretty bad. But when I saw that 0.25 marker, I knew that I actually did run a mile; I just didn't run it all at once.

Things I learned about this run:
1.) It's getting hot again.
2.) I was still sore from my physical therapy workout on Wednesday (yeah, Jeff did a number on me),
3.) I loved my pre-run workout so much that I can't wait to do it again.
4.) No matter what, the mind is a powerful thing. When you get in an argument with your mind, most likely, it will always win. My body tried to fight, but the mind hit me with the negative thoughts and I had to walk. It's okay though. I am getting better every week and I will get stronger to beat the mind once again.