No pain no gain

Running. I don’t know who decided it was a good idea, but I’m going to find out, and then I’m going to track them down and . . . well, best I don’t say anything incriminating.

I promised myself I’d go for a run today, finally get off my lazy butt and do some exercise. Instead, I lay in bed and ate an entire pizza on my own. My flatmate has been away all week and without her I feel next to no motivation to try be healthier.

As it neared evening a feeling of guilt came over me, and I decided I’d do it anyway. I’d still go for a run. The next 45 minutes were spent trying to make myself get off my bed and out the front door.

I started off at a light jog, feeling pretty good about myself. Then, about 30 seconds later, a stitch set in. ‘Ugh,’ I thought to myself miserably, ‘just reach the signpost in the distance.’

About halfway to the signpost, it started getting hard to breathe. You have to understand, I am not a fit person. I know you see people who look a normal weight and think they’re just being annoyingly modest when they say they’re unfit, but for me it’s the truth. I may not look like a fat person, but I am one where it counts: inside.

By the time I reached that signpost – and I had to break into a sprint to get there before my body gave up on me – I could barely breathe. Now, as I’ve already said in an indirect way, I do not run very much, but the feeling I experienced when I stopped at that signpost is something that I can’t remember feeling before while running. It’s not even as if I’d run the furthest or the fastest that I’d ever run.

I had incredibly sharp pains running all the way up my chest and throat, that stabbed at me whenever I tried to take even the shallowest of breaths. It felt like I was inhaling knives. I have never been in so much physical pain after a short jog, or perhaps after any exercise. The pain didn’t go away for the rest of the walk home. It was only about a five minute walk, I didn’t get very far, but the whole time I was struggling to breathe through the pain.

About halfway home I started feeling nauseous – again, something that hasn’t happened to me before – and feared that I might humiliate myself by throwing up on the side of a main road. Crossing my fingers, I willed away the nausea and continued my walk. Luckily I reached my house without incident, and it was only after dropping like a rock onto the couch and lying there for several minutes that the pain started to ebb, and the nausea started to disappear.

Is this what happens when you run after eating a whole pizza? Or is it because it was a cool evening and I hadn’t warmed up before I started running? Please don’t tell me it’s because I’m unfit, because boy does that make it harder to force myself out on those runs.