Since there’s alllll kinds of weather predicted for this week, I did another day today. I got in four running sequences (up one from yesterday) and didn’t have an asthma attack. I did have a side-stitch, which blew, but what are you gonna do? My body is FEELING it, too.
I figure I covered just over a mile today. (I drove it to get some good estimates of distance.) The cross streets are 1/10th of a mile, and I ran four of those, so I ran about 40 percent total. I feel like my stride is clunky, but it will work itself out, right? Because I’ve started all sick-like, I may repeat week one next week just to get a true Week one in. Woohoo!
Someone once told me to try to match my breathing to my stride: two steps to breathe in, and three steps to breathe out. The idea is that (a) you mitigate the tendency to step harder with one foot than the other, and (b) you get into a rhythm that counteracts the huffing and puffing and gasping. I don’t know if it does anything for (a), but it does help me with (b). My lungs are in pretty bad shape, but I’m less wheezy and gaspy when I do the two-in-three-out thing than when I don’t (and can therefore run longer), and my stide feels much more even and rhythmic. Less clunky, if you will.