2.25 Miles in 30 Minutes

So after deciding to sleep in yesterday morning I didn’t get the chance to run until after work at about 6:00 pm. I wasn’t looking forward to running in the heat, but I didn’t have time to go to the gym last night. Well my supposed 3 mile run turned into a 1.5 mile shuffle back to the air conditioning. I had underestimated how much the heat would slow me down and decided to call it a day after I made it back to the house.

This morning was the first morning this week that I have gotten up and ran. It was really foggy, humid and 75ºF, but still felt better than 85ºF and sunny. I was a little cautious about running 12 hours after the previous run, but with a good night’s sleep and a light run the night before I didn’t think it would bother me too much.

The side stitches really have been worse this week than normal. It started Monday, I had done some strength training at the gym Sunday night and my abs were still sore. I had to walk after about a mile in on the downhill section of the road with pretty bad side stitches. It hurt in three different places and I assumed that was just because I had worked out my abs the day before. Well I was able to walk those off and finish the run successfully.

Yesterday and today I only made it about .2 miles before a little one started and about 1 mile when I started to run the downhill section again and had to stop to try to walk it out. It wasn’t as bad yesterday since I only ran 1.5 miles, but later on in the evening when I was just walking through the parking lot to my car I got another stitch in the same place. Today I really tried to push through it and ended up walking on the downhill stretch again. After making it back to the house I decided that I would try a run/walk approach for the last little bit, because I didn’t just want to stop there. I thought that you were supposed to run through side stitches, even ones that really hurt so that’s what I was trying to do. Well I did manage to run a little bit more before finally just deciding to walk the last .2 miles home wincing with just about every step.

The weird part about this side stitch is that the area is still really tender and sore 4 hours after I stopped running. I’m hoping that it will heal itself after resting this weekend and that I can start anew on Monday. Well by resting I mean not running, there will still be lots of swimming, hiking and kayaking!!