One single mile

My plans of a 6.7 mile loop didn't work out today, but I did get in a quality two-miler. My main focus was consistency, and I managed to keep walk breaks only to a portion of the uphills. Coming back, no walk breaks at all. Not especially fast, mind you, but at the end it felt like I was flying right along. I grant the return route is mostly downhill, but not all of it. There's a three-block uphill section that is often more than I can handle.




My biggest problem is my breath support. It's just not there. At no point can I get a good deep breath, and if I want to run continuously, even maintaining the same slow pace gets harder and harder. But today, with the weather 20 degrees warmer than Christmas and humidity near 100%, something seemed to work out OK, and though I was still coughing a lot (and bringing up more than I have in the last few weeks), I didn't have to slow to a walk for every coughing spell. I was able to gain some confidence that I can once again, with discipline, handle the smaller hills and not have to walk every step of the larger hills.

I know it seems a very little thing to most of my readers, but being able to string together that one single mile is quite a victory for me. I don't expect to be able to do that during every run, but if I can increase the frequency when I can and just slowly get better, then maybe things will work out.