I am not a Runner

It is pretty obvious by my blog and lifestyle I am not a runner.  However, today I had a crazy notion I would take up running again.  You see a long, long time ago--well not too long ago, in my twenties, I used to run.  I was actually okay at it, I ran about a 6 minute mile, and averaged 8 minutes on 3 miles.  Not fast, but not too slow.  Eventually I had to have knee surgery, and then another knee surgery, and after the knee surgeries I quit running.  There wasn't any specific reason other than I quit running.

Today, however, I decided I would take up running again.  Since I have a difficult time finding a place to store my bike at work I decided instead of lunch rides maybe I could go for a jog at lunch time.  So today I put on my running shoes and took off.  I started out okay, a little light jogging down to the stoplight, stopped, jogged across the road, walked over an ice patch, and started jogging again. 

It did not take long, before the jogging turned into agony.  Each step I felt like a huge elephant pounding down on the pavement, and a mild pain began to reside in my hip.  I pushed forward with the goal to reach the second stop light.  I decided when I reached the stoplight I could stop and walk across street and then start running again.  This of course did not happen, because when I got to the stoplight the walk sign was on, and my pride got the best of me, so I jogged across.  This was pretty much the last jog step I took.  I had, had it.  My hip was hurting and my body did not understand why I was subjecting myself to such pain and misery.  All in a flash I remembered why I quit running--my body does not like it...it hurts, and not the good hurt.  I did not give up, two more times I tried to jog.  Unfortunately, I could not get past the elephant feeling and the pain shooting up my leg, I went a couple of steps and knew I was done.  Age and my body had won, it was better if I just walk.  So walking it was. 

In one small moment I have gone back to reality, I will not run again (at least until I forget again why I don't run).  The truly sad part of the whole scenario is when I went the one way for 20 minutes and then turned back, I should have not made it back to my desitnation within 20 minutes, it should have taken longer.  It did, by only 55 seconds!  I guess this tells you two things, I am a really slow runner and I actually was only able to run 2 and 1/2 blocks.  Oh well, glad I love to ride my  bike.