Fun run and golf balls

Tuesday:

Well, I just registered for the fun run. It is actually 3.4 km, and I have only 13 days to prepare. My training isn't going that smoothly so I don't feel ready at all, but I'm going to do it anyway.

My goals are 1) to finish and 2) to run as much as I can. I do not expect to run the whole thing.

Yesterday I woke with my shoulder aching -- my right shoulder, which I injured 12 years ago, not the left which was only damaged two years ago. The right rarely hurts now except when I am sick or overuse the computer. I haven't been feeling well the past few days and I assume it was a combination of that and sleeping on it wrong. It washed out my plan to do BodyPump and I just did some gentle walking.

Today was a run-training day. Luckily my shoulder was fine but I still wasn't feeling great this morning so I put it off until after lunch when I was feeling much better. I had to walk/run 2.41 km. I found the instructions a bit confusing, previous sessions of this length were "slow run or brisk walk" and as I can't run far yet I just did the brisk walk except for the first day when I did my own run/walk intervals. But then I had an training session with actual planned intervals so I felt like I shouldn't be doing them on the other days. But it was confusing doing so many walking sessions -- I already know how to walk. Then today's session said "If you can't run the whole way yet, run as much as you can". So that sounds like I should have been putting in my own running intervals all along. And I haven't been. Only a week and a half into this and already I feel off track.

Ha. If I can't run the whole way yet?! Not even close.

I went down to the local oval, using half of the walk there as a warm up then doing a little run, but I was only a quarter of my way around my first lap of the running track imprinted on the grass when I saw a golf ball in the lane. I nudged it gently off the track, to next to another golf ball. Huh? Why would someone leave golf balls here? A couple of metres further on there were another half a dozen. I looked around and saw a woman standing over in the shade with a golf club, some distance away. "You worked out what I am doing yet?" she called. At the time I though she said it in a friendly way, but now I wonder if she was being a bit snarky because I was in her way. "I was wondering why there were golf balls all over the place," I laughed, moving on.

So the running track was now out of the question, with golf balls flying around, and I moved onto the footpath and wandered around the suburb. But it was far from ideal, running on the path makes my shins hurt (which is going to be a real problem in races and I don't know how to resolve that) and quite often I didn't even have a footpath; I had to walk on unmown grassy nature strip or in the gutter along the side of the road. I got in three little running intervals all together. Not a good session at all.