Sunday RUNday!

Well... it's been about 3 weeks (possibly longer) since I last laced up the Newtons. My runs had been HORRIBLE. Like, really bad. So, so bad. And that does not lead one to want to go back for more. But the scale and my pants keep trying to tell me otherwise.  So finally I listened to my pants and went out for an evening run.
You may or may not remember that I love giving myself rules for my runs. Some days it's speed rules, some days it's distance. Today's rules were simple: run three miles with no walking. I didn't care how long it took, but that's what I needed to get done. Just in case I might be tempted to try and run faster than I'm currently capable of, I left my Garmin home. I even left my headphones home.
You know what? It was soooo nice to hear the peepers and the birds. And it was even better to have no idea just how slow I was actually running. I used my Charity Miles App to keep track of distance but it doesn't track time. PERFECT! And I was even more happy to have left the headphones behind because there was a guy playing the banjo on the beach. Seriously. (My town is awesome.)
My first mile felt surprisingly nice. The weather was perfect, mid 70's and no humidity. Most of that first mile is nice and flat. When I got to the little hill that I had been walking in my recent runs, I told myself to slow down and keep going. Up and over I went, slow as molasses and feeling pretty good! The whole run felt decent, and when I started to struggle I just slowed down my pace, but kept running. Before I knew it, I was back home. Finally!  A decent run! Hopefully the first of many. I think for awhile at least, I'm going to leave the Garmin at home, and just get the distances done as slow as I need to.
Do you have any tricks to help get back into running? Have you taken a hiatus ever? WHY IS RUNNING SO HARD?!