A visit from Death...

I went on my first run yesterday in what seems like forever. And I about died. I had found out about this cool trail not to far from home and so Petree (my puppy) and I went on a walk a couple Sunday's ago to check it out, we didn't get all that far because it got muddy and I was wearing flip flops. So the next day we went back prepared (and with Michael). I noticed that there was a trail running along both sides of the river, which I thought was way cool. But it was even cooler to find out that at the 'end' of the trail on one side of the river there was a footbridge that you could cross and come back down the other side. Once we had done the loop we noticed a sign that said it was 1.5 miles to the footbridge, so the trail is pretty much an even 3 miles. Perfect for running! Even though I've done it quite a bit I still don't understand how people can run on a treadmill, especially when it's nice outside. Running on a treadmill is so boring to me, I would much rather be actually moving and getting somewhere so I love, love, love trail running. What I don't love? The burning pain in my lungs, burned so bad I just wanted to stop breathing, yet I couldn't stop sucking wind fast enough! It's the Catch-22 from hell. For the first quarter of the run I felt like poo, just felt REALLY out of shape and loser-ish. I knew I wasn't going to be able to run the entire way without stopping so my plan was to run for as long as I could stand it, then walk/recover and keep repeating that until I had finished. So like I said, the first quarter of it was pretty bad, but after I had crossed the bridge and started back down the other side my lungs weren't hurting nearly as bad and I was able to run more than I walked. It took me 40 minutes to do the loop. Not fantastic, but it could have been a lot worse. Afterwards I had this awesome asthmatic/smokers wheezing cough. I think it was my body letting me know how pissed off it was with me. It's going to be really mad when I do it again today, ha! I am not nearly as sore as I thought I was going to be. So now my plan is to keep running and to get back into it slowly, it has been a while so I don't want to go balls to the wall and end up too sore to work out, or injured. Eating better has been going pretty good, I think the daily run will help a lot, I'm way more conscious of what I eat when I'm working out harder.