The Soreness of an Infrequent Runner

You’ve heard of The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner which was one of the books that started the first running boom in the 70’s. I have not read it and neither can I identify with it since in my case, it has become the soreness of an infrequent runner. Please allow me to explain. If you have been reading my blog recently, you would know that I do power walking now when I train with my running club - A Running Experience. Last Saturday morning, I was feeling a little frisky after doing a three hour walk two days prior so I thought I’d try to do a little jogging. I did my usual one mile brisk walk warm up then set my GPS watch interval timer. The plan was to jog for two minutes then do a one minute recovery walk. With a bit of delusional thinking, I thought I could keep up with some people whom I’ve run with before, at least during the first two minute interval at the start. I was woefully mistaken when reality struck me in the face after I saw that those people had gotten much faster since I last ran with them. That, plus the combination of me having gotten so slow. No matter. I kept plugging away and didn’t do the walk break after two minutes and numerous more times thereafter. I mentioned in my previous post that I didn’t sweat very much during the three hour walk. Well, within the first five minutes of slow jogging, perspiration was dripping down my brow. I kept shuffling along not knowing how far I could take it before my ankles start to protest. When my stride became heavier at about 3 ½ miles, I decided it was time to do the walk breaks, but not until I reached 4 miles. A couple of people passed me at that point which was a surprise because I thought I was again the last runner. The one minute walk break ended and I started jogging again but this time I opened up my stride a little bit until the two minute alarm told me to do another one minute walk break. During the two minute run, I would catch up with one or two runners and they in turn would pass me on my walking breaks. This pattern kept on for the last 3 miles of the 7 mile route.

                Let me tell you how it felt to open up my stride for those two minutes of running: it was two minutes of pure bliss at a time which made me feel like a runner again. Look at the picture below with the forward lean while I neared the finish. Do I look like a runner? LOL! And of course look at the picture above with the more upright posture near the two mile mark when I was just shuffling. Oh by the way, those runners going the other way were from another training group. (Thanks to our intrepid and speedy club VP - Dave K., who runs all over the course to take these pictures.)

                So how does the title of this post fit in? Well, as can be expected, when you don’t do a certain activity often enough, you feel soreness in your muscles and joints afterwards. What surprised me was that I didn’t feel as sore as I expected even though I had to work the next couple of nights. But oh, boy was I tired Saturday night and it took every ounce of energy to keep myself awake while on the job. As far as my muscles and joints? I lucked out this time because the soreness was minimal.

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