Obsession #1: Jogging

The day before new years 2008/2009 I had to get a book on how to teach kids to sleep all night from a friend at the other end of town (and my bike was not functional), so I laced my old jogging shoes and ran over. On my way back it felt kind of good and that surprised me (I always ranked jogging as the next to most boring exercise, with swimming winning the league) so I ran a bit of a detour. When home I calculated that I just did 6 km. That sparked something in me.
So every Sunday (often at 9 am) I ran. At first 10 km. Then the last weeks 20 km. (Even at a conference in Spain I got up at 5 am and run 10 km just to not miss the weeks run.)

Then one day in July when I got back (after 6 months and ca 300 km) my knees started to hurt like crazy. The next week I paused. And whenever I tried to pick up jogging my knees hurt after 2 km... And the running was over just as soon as it started.

What did I learn:

• That jogging can be great. Very surprising for me as I hated jogging before.
• You sleep much better after spending 50 minutes jogging
• I did not get below 50 minutes on 10 km, which disturbed me. Strangely enough I was able to keep the same pace for 22 km, but not increase it.
• When running more than 15 km you need water on the run
• You can run in any weather - any. I did hale storms, pouring rains, snow, summer heat. It all works (but phones die when they get wet).
• Listening to music is great, but it seems as if I ran faster without (I had music anyhow...)

Period: 2008-12-30 to 209-06-15 (6.5 months)