Friday, October 4, 2024

From Square One

Well hello there. Did you miss me? Did you think runlittlegoat was long gone? Dead, kaput, swimming with the fishes? The new persona "Heather Ihn Art", a prolific plein air painter, seemed to emerge from nowhere and was throwing the last shovels of dirt on the casket until one mighty hoof emerged from the soil. RunLittleGoat has returned!

Despite a pretty impressive record of persisting through years of injuries and lugging a under-the-bed storage bin full of race medals and bibs with each move, I was ready to bury my running past, along with it, this blog. It's difficult to look back and not be a little embarrassed by my obsession - past me is quite different to the now me.

What happened? Well...I don't do anything "moderately" and my running history was proof. However, in 2016 my intense focus switched from running to painting, and a few years were spent doing almost no exercise and just painting every free moment of the day. It wasn't just that though.

My first panic attack was running induced (I think?). I had no idea what it was until it happened again, and again. Dizziness, trembling, nausea, curling up on a bathroom floor and refusing to move. I ran less and less, and my fear took over other parts in my life (still can't get over the freeway driving thing). By 2018, my body was so weak that I'd be out of breath going up a set of stairs, and the ligaments in my knees felt like loose rubber bands that would constantly be slipping and getting out of place. I tried to convince myself that I didn't care and that I was one of those "cool kids" that frowned upon any physical activity. Doing a light 20 min yoga video had me in a near panic, but around 2022 I decided to get over it, face my fears, and improve my health.

Fast track to today- Jon signed us up at our local Crunch gym that September, and I have been consistently working out there doing just about every class they come up with. Barre, yoga, trampoline/rebounding, circuit training, spinning, weights, boxing, they're all great. The rotating classes are perfect for my increasingly short attention span, and doing the varied workouts has really helped to keep me relatively injury free and balanced which will be a HIGH priority now that I've entered my 40's.

Running hasn't been of any interest, but once and a while there's an urge to lace up and meander the neighborhood. My pace has gotten so dreadfully slow though that I had been hiding all my runs on Strava from anyone. I tried doing MAF but that would be a medium paced walk, so I just ignored the heart rate and go by feel. At best I'm a 10:30 min mile, and it was just so frustrating and demoralizing that I was about to throw in the towel.

Until this month. Suddenly the spark is back, and I am determined to take it seriously and start training. Part of the reason is because I miss being able to freely run for hours, that runner's high is something special, and another part is missing the friends and events. We met a lot of great people through running, and explored so many places. This blog also helps, because I enjoy writing and sharing my experiences with others.

So there we have it. I should mention, there have been some changes since my last post in 2016. The wedding DID happen, and Jon and I are now happily married and going to celebrate our 9th anniversary in 2025. Our old dogs Jack and Gottie have sadly passed, but we adopted two VERY sporty dogs that Jon runs tied to his waist almost everyday named Coconut and Pancake.