Ouch! I havent had a stitch in my side in at least a good 6-8 months! But todays work out gave me a killer one that I just couldnt get rid of with my usual methods. I used to get these a lot when I first started the couch to 5k program, after a little research I figured out that I tend to breathe really shallow and always take the little gasp in when my right foot falls. When I do this it keeps my diaphram lifted and the connective ligaments of the liver are always tense and never get to relax and that can cause the daiphram to start to spasm which we usually call a side stitch. This training run was a nice easy training run, which I guess I wasnt taking nearly serious enough. I was off day dreaming on my treadmill while my husband and son watched Shrek. I was off in my own world and fell back into my bad rookie habits of shallow breathing and running with syncronized breathing. Once I realised I had a whicked side stitch I tried to unsync my breathing and breathe very deeply. It helped a bit but I really had one heck of a side stitch going! I took a walk break and even after two minutes it hadnt gone away, so I just kept focus on keeping my breathing deep and unsynced with my foot falls. This used to work really well for me, unfortunatly this time the only thing that got rid of it for me was stopping. Luckily I was near the end of my run when it got really bad so I finished out my run. I have only  25 days until my half marathon!  I feel very ready for it to be here in a sense Im ready to not have a specific training schedual I have to follow and just run. This past week I skipped a few days of running because I was feeling really busy, frustrated and tired, but I think that little break was exactly what I needed to remember how much I loved running. I even dreamed lastnight about my treadmill and running stroller. Yah, thats slightly disturbing!

Posted by Shelley in Whatever on March 5th, 2007 |