Tales of a Running Hater Part VI: The Stitch Edition

This week, I’m starting to feel it.

Week 4 of the Couch-to-5k program has come, and the length time of the running intervals are starting to get longer.

In my mind, and from my athletic background, running for five minutes straight is nothing. But, it’s been awhile since I was in any sort of running shape, so this week was the first of the program I really felt that it was starting to push my limits. Not that my limits are impressive. At all. 

The interval set was run for 3 minutes, walk for 90 seconds, run for 5 minutes, walk for 2 minutes and complete two sets.

In day 1, in the first five minute run, I got a cramp in my side. I worked it out and was fine for the rest of the run. On day 2, another cramp came and this time it lasted through most of the second set. It never hurt to the point that it forced me stop, but it did affect my speed on the last five minute run; I couldn’t push as hard as I wanted in the final couple of minutes.

So I looked up some info on cramps (or stitches, as they’re sometimes called) to hopefully avoid that problem tomorrow when I run day 3.

I read two articles to help me, one on WebMD and one on Cool Running and both said it’s more a breathing problem than anything else. If you learn nothing else from me in this life, remember that shallow breathing is bad. You can get stitches by simply not breathing deep enough. If you start breathing properly, a lot of times the stitch will go away.

When you get a cramp, it’s best to just slow down, even to a walk if necessary, until the stitch goes away. It usually won’t take too long to subside. 

There can be other contributing factors, like being dehydrated or eating too much before going on a run. Good breathing seems to be the key.

I’m coming up on the halfway point of this program, and I’m really glad I started it. As I mentioned in the previous Couch-to-5k posts (you can click here if you want to read them), I have never enjoyed running, but I wanted to challenge myself.

At first, I was struggling to stay motivated to do the runs. But now, I actually (gulp) look forward to run days. I can’t tell you how much better I feel on days I run. Even from start to finish of the run, my body feels drastically improved.

So, look out. I’m actually starting to enjoy this. Sort of.

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