At the end of Week 2, I mentioned that I was already experimenting with something new.

This time, it had nothing to do with pace. It was breathing.

I had already been trying to get my breathing under control, but Sunday I started being more deliberate about it.

In through my nose. Out through my mouth.

Nothing complicated.

I just wanted to see if focusing on something other than my watch would help me settle into the run.

Turns out, that first experiment went pretty well.

1.6 Miles

Sunday felt different almost immediately.

I found a rhythm and stayed there.

Toward the end, it became more of a mental battle, but physically I still felt good. I did not feel like I was hanging on waiting for the workout to end.

Then my watch told me I had reached 1.6 miles. That one mattered.

It was the longest continuous run I had completed since starting the program.

No walking break. No stopping to let my heart rate come down. Just running.

I know 1.6 miles is not some massive running accomplishment. Plenty of people can lace up their shoes and run much farther without giving it a second thought.

A few weeks earlier, I couldn’t. That is what made it important.

For the first time, I could really feel the distance between where I had started and where I was now.

When Garmin asked how I felt afterward, I picked Very Strong.

And that was exactly how I felt.

I also resisted the urge to add anything extra afterward.

No sprints. No bonus work because I felt good. I finished what I was supposed to do and stopped.

Apparently I was learning something after all.

As for the breathing? I thought it helped.

Maybe I had found something.

So Much for That

Running gave me about 24 hours to enjoy that idea.

Monday’s workout increased the distance again.

It was also another hot day.

And almost immediately, it did not feel anything like Sunday.

I tried to settle into the same kind of rhythm, but eventually I needed walking breaks.

Then another.

The workout was slower than the day before, but it felt harder.

When Garmin asked how I felt afterward, I chose Weak.

That was a pretty dramatic change from Very Strong one day earlier.

I had just spent Sunday thinking I might have stumbled onto something with my breathing.

One run later, I was reminded that there probably wasn’t going to be one trick that suddenly made all of this easy.

That probably should have been obvious.

Still, it would have been nice.

What the Watch Couldn’t Tell Me

Tuesday was a rest day.

By this point, I was starting to realize how much I had been relying on numbers to tell me whether a run was good.

Pace. Heart rate. Distance. Training Effect.

There was always another number to look at.

But Sunday and Monday did not make much sense if I looked at them that way.

The faster run felt easier. The slower run felt harder.

My watch had plenty of information about both of them, but it could not completely explain why one left me feeling strong and the other did not.

I was starting to appreciate that.

Garmin could tell me what my body did.

I still had to figure out how I felt about it.

Perfect Running Weather

Wednesday was my final run of the week.

It was 97 degrees when I started. Garmin eventually recorded temperatures around 100.

Perfect running weather as a southern boy.

I knew it was hot before I went outside. Obviously.

But there is something about already being dressed, shoes on, watch ready, standing there knowing you have a workout scheduled.

At some point the thought becomes: “Well, I’m already here.”

So I ran.

It was hard. Really hard.

I needed breaks again.

My heart rate climbed. I would recover, start running again, and eventually need another one.

There was nothing graceful about it. But I kept going.

When I finished, Garmin asked the same questions it always did.

How did you feel? Strong.

How hard was it? Extremely Hard.

I remember those two answers standing out to me.

Strong. Extremely Hard.

At first, they almost seemed like they should cancel each other out. They didn’t.

The workout was extremely hard. I still felt strong.

I had taken walking breaks. I still felt strong.

It was almost 100 degrees outside. I still felt strong.

I think that was the first time I really understood the difference between something being difficult and me feeling incapable of doing it.

Those are not the same thing.

A few weeks earlier, every walking break felt like evidence that I was not ready.

Now it was just something I needed in that moment.

Take the break. Catch my breath. Start again.

That felt like a much healthier way to look at it.

Then I Didn’t Run

That was it for the week.

Three runs in the first four days, followed by three days without one.

Thursday was a rest day.

Friday was another rest day, and I went to a baseball game.

Saturday was rest too.

A few weeks earlier, three days without running probably would have bothered me.

I would have felt like I needed to squeeze something in just to make sure I wasn’t losing whatever progress I had made.

This time, I really didn’t. I had run. I had done the work.

Now I could go do other things.

Somewhere during that weekend, I went out for a morning walk. There was no workout attached to it.

No distance I needed to reach. No pace to watch. No heart-rate target. I was just walking.

And I remember being in a genuinely good mood.

No workout. No pace goal. Just a good morning.

That might seem like a small thing. It did not feel small to me.

I started this whole thing because I wanted to get better at running.

Three weeks in, I was starting to notice that I just felt better sometimes.

Not during a workout. Not after setting some new best.

Just during a normal morning walk.

I think that mattered more than I realized at the time.

Strong and Extremely Hard

Week 3 gave me my longest continuous run of the program.

The very next day reminded me that one great run did not mean I had suddenly figured everything out.

Then Wednesday gave me two words that somehow made perfect sense together: Strong and Extremely Hard.

That is probably the best description of where I was at this point.

Things were still difficult.

I was just becoming more confident that difficult did not automatically mean I needed to stop.

I could slow down.

I could walk.

I could move a workout.

I could take three days off.

None of those things meant I was going backward.

And somewhere between all of that, running was starting to become something I actually looked forward to.

After three days away from it, I was curious about what the next run was going to feel like.

I would find out soon enough.