Running

Today marked day one in my running adventures. And guess what … I’m still alive! I know. I’m quite surprised too. Since I’m semi following the “The NonRunner’s Marathon Guide For Women” marathon training schedule (why? seemed like a good idea? no, I have no intention of actually training for a marathon) today I had to “run” for 35 minutes. I was actually semi excited to get started (on Friday…) Monday (today) came along and I had been dealing with sick kids all weekend (and night) hadn’t gotten much sleep and SURPRISE! had a sore throat myself (just perfect). Since the dear husband got in rather late from work the night before I figured there was no way in Pittsburgh that I was going to be able to go run this morning — which was fine by me as I wasn’t exactly feeling top of my game (shame on me already). Well, thankfully, I wasn’t going to get out of it that easily. Andy got up, since both kids were awake anyway, and told me to go run. Yay. Can’t back out/say no now. So off I went to pound out my 35 minutes of running. Pound out is very accurate. Have you ever heard me run on a treadmill? I’m pretty sure they can hear me in Timbuktu. I tried to fore-run after watching countless of YouTube videos but apparently I don’t have the hang of it yet. I came armed with Pandora on my iPhone. The “Pink” station has never let me down when I need a burst of energy for working out. Well, today — not so much. Today the “P!nk” station decided that love ballads and country music was good for me for running (uh, no) and apparently you can only skip so many songs. I like Bleeding Heart, Jar of Hearts and Love Story just as much as the next guy (which is not a lot) but when you need a peppy song for the last two minutes which you promised yourself you’d run and you aren’t letting yourself chicken out, Love Story just doesn’t do it. But of course having already used up my skips, I had to. I ended up imagining I was some character in a movie running towards the love of her life (you know the bridge part of the song… it kinda builds… you see it? …. no? oh ok). Stop judging. I had to do it to get through my run. I actually ended up doing a lot better then what I thought I was going to do. 2.07 miles in my 35 minutes. Not awesome, not wonderful, but a lot better then the almost 1 mile I thought I was going to accomplish.

My cousin wants me to run a 5K with her at the endish of October. This is a far far cry from the April/May that I was actually planning on running my 5K. Hence the fire under butt to actually start running (thanks, Lauren). Now. I just need to curve 5-10 minutes off my 35 minute time and add a mile plus a little … in five-ish weeks. Here we go.>