The New Fit Me! – Running 5 Kms

Posted on October 31, 2021 by KJ Eastwick

Day 14

My 900 meters was not a fluke. Today I jogged 1300 meters. For those who do not use metric units, this is 1.3 km. I am very happy with this result, even if I cut my run short. The day started out humid but sunny. Then the fog rolled in. Running or even walking in a lukewarm fog is not particularly pleasant. I do not enjoy the feeling of sweat dripping into my eyes.

The end result is that I returned to the apartment, did my posture stretches, push-ups, bicycle crunches, and a few other stretches whose names I have forgotten. I got the same pleasantly stretched and worked out feeling that I had yesterday, so that’s a win for me.

Now I have to put a caveat on the jog. Today I really concentrated on keeping my speed slow to maximise my distance. My time was pretty pathetic. However, now I know that 5 km is not an insurmountable distance. The mental battle now is about how I stop trying to just run.

I know that may be an odd statement. My entire jogging career—which was not so crash hot—was about making it to that tree, or that corner, basically some distance that I could see. My brain would get close to it and just say, “She’ll be right mate; that’s good enough.” (I am Australian; my brain is allowed to say things like that!). To set my brain a goal and say, “Let’s see if you can go further,” is a different thing for me. And it obviously worked.

I am not sure why my brain has decided to stop getting in the road, but I like it. Realistically, I am an older woman (although I have been 25 for many years now!). I am worried that I will injure myself. This is challenging, and I am trying to slow myself down in what I achieve towards this goal each day. If the weather is sunny, I want to run each day. What a weird place to find myself in, and I find I have to pull myself back and say, “No, you need to make it to Day 100, not do yourself an excessive use injury before then.” This is a very unusual spot for me.