Running on empty

So as you all know, we triumphantly finished our "walk to run" program about two weeks ago or so, having hit that coveted "30 minute mark" that we needed to hit to finish the whole thing. And it felt awesome and we were excited and pumped. But we were finished with the program. So, we decided to try a different program to keep up on our running and chose a beginner 5K training program from Nike's website.

We're not even the whole way through week two and today we realized something.

It's far too intense for what we're ready for.

It didn't look like it would be that bad when you read the program online - but it has us running just about every day and has also added fun things like strength training and we both realized we are just beyond wiped out already.

I mentioned recently that we are not morning people. Yet, we get up early enough so we can do this running. If we keep up on this program right now, in a few short weeks we could be looking at getting up even earlier than we already are. I can be like an old lady to a point, but I don't want to have to start going to bed before 9:00 either!!

We're also both just feeling stressed and even a little burned out. We have other things going on in our lives besides running and already on week two of this program, it feels like our life is only about running and nothing else. We're not enjoying it anymore. We're running on empty.

So, where does that leave us?

We are not quitting. We still want to be runners. We still enjoy a good run in the morning - but right now, we're going to go at our own pace. We're still proud and pleased to have completed our "Walk to Run" program and the fact that we're choosing to not move on to something else doesn't lessen that accomplishment in anyway.

What about the Torchlight 5K? Or the fact that I wanted to do a 5K this fall? For the 5K next week, we will run as much of it as we can and if we walk some, we walk some. This fall? Probably more of the same. I don't think either one of us will ever be "marathon" runners.

It was a hard decision to come to, but I think we're both going to feel a lot better because of it. Our health and well being is important after all!