Hi fellow Hiveians,

Today I'm excited to have started to get back into running after a hiatus!

Running Wednesday Walk

Running has been something that I've really enjoyed doing but only really in my older years. I started running in my mid 20's I would say, about 24 or 25 just about I think. When I was younger, I thought running and exercising purposefully was stupid and that the people who did it were "meatheads" but I think that was just my naivety coming through lol. Since I gave it a try, I really enjoyed getting to the gym to do some weight lifting and various things that were, when I was younger, something that I felt was stupid and not necessary.

Running is definitely one of those things that I didn't hate per se but I didn't like to do it for a few different reasons. One of them being I had exercise-induced asthma when I was in my early teens and middle teens. I think this was caused by environmental issues; I had a lot of family members that smoked and I was around them a fair bit growing up. Thankfully my parents weren't the ones who smoked but people we would go see fairly often. Eventually though, with varying changes to my lifestyle and body I was able to overcome the asthma and one of those things that helped me curb it was actually running!

I had a great little running career, in that I competed in a few dozen races and some of them were really fun obstacle course races called Spartan races. I was in my glory that's for sure, because that shit was fun! Sadly, I went a little too strong on one of those situations hahaha. I was at a party one night with some friends and I happened to be chatting with a guy I used to skateboard with often and him and his fiancé (or wife, don't remember but they are now married) were talking about an upcoming race that they were training for. I sadly remember it quite well LOL we were in the kitchen chatting about it with some beers!

One thing led to another and then before I knew it, I signed myself up for the same race! It was a half marathon! Damn that was wild, because half marathons are 13.1 miles long, since a marathon is 26.2 miles. The half was such an awesome experience and one that I really enjoyed because it gave me a lot of discipline, most of that mental. When you're running, long distances especially, mental discipline is such an important factor because your mind is constantly telling you "stop running, you're tired!" when in reality, you're not but your mind is just trying to fuck you up hahaha.

With that half marathon though, I trained and did it way too quickly. I had run max of 4 miles I think, maybe 5 before I decided to sign up for and train for the half marathon. Going from 5 miles up to 13.1 isn't that big of a deal.. if you do it in the appropriate amount of time. I did not. LOL I had 4 months to train and didn't get to do all of it at once, as when you're trying to push your body and your limits like that you end up having to take breaks to let your body rest and recover.

Needless to say, I injured my knee a little bit and haven't been able to consistently run since.

I am thinking there are a few factors that allowed me to get back into running, and of course I don't have any scientific evidence for it, just anecdotal evidence based on my experience thus far. One of those things that I swear has helped not only my knee but other parts of my body and joints is taking collagen supplements. I've felt better and less aches and issues in my joints since I started taking the collagen, such as my wrist hasn't been as much of a pain as it usually is. Is it healing it? Hard to say, but it feels better! My knee certainly does feel better though, and that's what's most noticeable.

A few months ago though, the little man and I signed up for indoor rock climbing and have been going consistently every weekend since. This has allowed me to exercise in many different ways, but importantly for my legs and knee, allowed me to exercise my knee in many of the different ways that are important for regaining strength in a weak muscle group! The weak muscle group in my case is what lead to some instability and thus the knee pain that I got when I was running.

A couple months ago, at a similar time, I decided when I was taking the little man to one of his appointments that I would get out there and walk instead of sitting in the car like a lazy ass. This was good exercise and morphed from that into me thinking a few weeks ago "let's see if I can try running..." and bam! I ran about a mile. The first full mile I've run in 7 years LOL. I tried running when the little man was just born but it never really worked out because I wasn't training my legs.

I decided to commemorate the running with a few poorly shot pictures of me running, although was hoping that the story was more of the interesting part than the weird pictures hahaha.

^-CmplXty. _{Real human written content, never AI.}

Connect with me!

Do you want to get paid, in crypto, for searching the internet? Try using and signing up for Presearch to earn some great crypto! I've currently got 2,900 PRE tokens, with a market value of $180.27. It doesn't sound like a lot but when you search using sites like Google you get paid $0! Join Presearch to break Google's stranglehold on the internet searches. If you'd like to sign up, use my referral link below and spread the word!
https://www.presearch.org/signup?rid=513043

Image source