For the record, WE DID IT.

I am so proud of us for setting the goal, and training, and blogging (ok, so we were a little more OCD about it in the beginning, oh well), and actually doing the 5 K together. HONK!!

We have accomplished a lot, and I just love our little team.

And one more thing. I had no idea how much FUN I would have actually doing the 5K. I mean, I know Team Liz walked a good portion of it, and therefore breathing was a little easier, but seriously, it made me wanna do a 5K every week. I loved the drive, the cold, the dark, the late night aspect, the post run pancakes, and my new playlist.

Something from Born to Run that has stuck out to me, is this tribe in Mexico, they call themselves "the running people" (in a dialect of Spanish), right? well their whole like motto is that running should be fun. if you aren't enjoying it, you are doing something wrong. and for me, jumping around in my toe shoes made it fun again, like when you are a kid and you say "hey mom look at this!" and you take a running leap to clear a 5 inch curb. its more fun to run around with other people and do that, which is difficult to coordinate, so i'm going to try to remedy that somehow... not sure yet how though.

BOOOOOOOOO

Well. I ran the other day. And then today. Neither of which were very successful. Today my foot started hurting all kinds of intense. Of which that really bummed me out. :( I'm really hoping that tomorrow will look better. I'm pretty determined to make it the whole three miles without walking. So yeah, this week is the "now or never" week for me I think. I'm just nervous about the race only for the reason of my foot and not being able to finish, ya know? Well, I know I'll finish - I just don't want to walk.

Okay, enough of that. Even though I'm nervous, I'm still excited about the race. It'll be fun and really pretty with all the lights. :) It'll be a nice way to really kick off the holiday season, I think. Plus we get a t-shirt! haha!:)

Anyway, I will see you both VERY SOON!

HONK!

PS - we should coordinate ourselves.....maybe.... ;)

pool time

So after I wrote my last blog post I immediatly went downstairs to the gym to go run. I figured I'd make it a light run then jump in the pool. I did a mile at a pretty good pace, faster than normal since it was on a treadmill and that makes it a little harder to slow down, granted all you have to do is press a button but still harder than running outside.

Anyway, I get done with my run and go to get into the pool but you have to swipe your room key and i couldn't get in! Turns out the pool didn't open until 6 am (it was 5:30 am when I tried). So I went back into the gym and decided to get on the stair master. I figured if I got on the treadmill again I might just go back to the room when I was done (due to being too tired) instead of get in the pool. I did 30 mins on the stair master and got into the pool.

It was HEAVEN! Did I tell you how much I love swimming? I think I was a fish or a dolphin in another life or something. I did several lengths of the pool swam for about 20 mins in all and then jumped into the spa. It was nice and hot but I didn't stay in it too long. Spa's/hot tub's are no fun alone ;).

All in all a GREAT morning. Now if only i can get back to sleep.....

Matt

Nov 2: 2.27

Nov 4: 2.75

Nov 7: 1.7

Nov 9: 3.11

Nov 12: 2.00

Nov 15: 1.00

Total: 12.83

hills

So I need to do a quick post about my run on Thursday. I decided to set up a different type of run for each day I run. Mondays will be speed days, where I attempt to run 3.1 miles in the fastest time possible. Wednesdays will be hills, pretty self explanatory. And Fridays will be endurance, where I will attempt to run longer distances with the goal to end up running 6.2 miles (10K).

I skipped running on Wednesday thinking I would be able to push Friday's run back to Sat. Needless to say if you've seen my facebook and twitter posts you know how that worked out.

So Thursday I ran hills. What I had to do since Valdosta doesn't really have "hills" they have "gradual inclines" and none consistently in a row that it makes for a good work out, is I went to the track and ran the hills there. The new middle school sits higher up than the track next to it so the track is surrounded by these pretty steep hills on about 2/3 of it. So I did a warm up walking lap then made for the first hill. All in all it wasn't bad. I now know why hills make for good workouts as my legs were a burnin! I ran in a big circle going up and down the hills for about 20 minutes. My goal is to increase the amount of time I'm able to run the hills.

Well I gotta run (literally) I'm at the hotel and since I'm somewhat caught up on sleep (while everyone else I'm in the suite with is sleeping) I'm going to make use of their gym AND POOL! I'm really pumped about the pool :)

Matt

Nov 2: 2.27

Nov 4: 2.75

Nov 7: 1.7

Nov 9: 3.11

Nov 12: 2.00

Total: 11.83

I am excited for the 5K!

I went barefoot running again in my purple toe shoes today. i had to take a couple walking breaks in there, but i went for longer than i had in a LONG time. I just had some shoulder side stiches that made it difficult. I am hoping to run a lot sunday-wed, then break til the race! i mailed my stuff in, so its official now :) Perhaps that was all I had to say... oh, so yesterday i slept from 11am-3, then from 1:30am-4:30am. I laid in bed til 5:30, but at that point i realized it was hopeless, so i got up, ate breakfast, put 4 loads of clean laundry away, cleaned my room, packed for the weekend, and got out the door for a run by 8am. who's impressed? i am. my body is so weird though. i mean really 4 hours of sleep shouldn't be enough. that is just a nap. but oh well. i just love my time off so much, i don't argue with getting to spend more of it awake, hanging out with people, being productive, or just lounging around.

ok race day is soon... HONK!!

I might be a little crazy

It's been a while, I know. Please accept my sincerest apologies. :)

I didn't run last week - I was sick and in bed most of the week with a ton of coughing and congestion in my chest and nose. So yeah, NyQuil was my best friend all week. :) Today was the first day back running. I was dag gum determined to go 2 miles today. I've still had to walk during my run but today I didn't want to do any walking. I knew that I wouldn't be able to go for very long since I've been out of commission for a week so thinking that I could knock out 3 miles was kinda unreasonable. But let me tell you - I did my warm up walk and determination set in. Once I started running, I was going for it - I was gonna get to 2 miles come hell or high water hah. I went to the gym to run since the rain was pretty intense and cold. Cold rain would not be that healthy for me haha. I started my Nike+ once I started running, so I did 2 miles even. I had to coax myself in increments once I hit the mile mark - "okay just get through another quarter of a mile and see how you're doing then" was my mantra for the second mile hah. But I made it and was pretty happy about it. :)

Tuesdays are yoga days. So I immediately left the gym all sweaty and whatnot to head to yoga. I had almost slowed my heart rate back to normal by the time I get to yoga and have to make a small sprint up the stairs to get there in time haha. And then I sweat for another hour and a half. So yeah, I sweat continuously for about 2 1/2 hours haha.

Tomorrow I'm planning on running again. That's the plan, but I may not be able to walk comfortably b/c of the running and yoga. I'm trying to get ready for our FIRST 5K TOGETHER (YAY!!!!!) next Friday and it would be nice if I could actually get through the 3 miles without dying. My plan is to run almost every day leading up to the race. I set pretty high expectations for myself and up to this point, they haven't been met for reasons like my knee and foot acting up with the sickness that happened last week. So yeah, slightly disappointed in myself on the micro level of not being able to run as far as I would like, but proud of myself that only a few months ago I couldn't get anywhere near where I am now. On another positive note, I realized while on the treadmill that my pace has gotten faster than when I started running, which confirms what I thought but it was cool to actually see that on the treadmill.

I'm really excited about our race - I think it's gonna be pretty freaking awesome. :) HONK!

Timed Run

This evening I took a little different strategy with my run. Since my time at the last 5K was 35:48, I decided to set my Nike+ to 35 mins and see if I could do 3.1 miles in less than that. This new strategy must be taken with a grain of salt given that my Nike+ might be off but none the less, I did it!

I ran 3.11 miles in 34:42!

I was so pumped! and yet soooooo tired. My shirt was soaked, my legs were on fire and during the run I had multiple side stitches. I also wanted to quit several times but didn't. There is a quote from Lance Armstrong that I'm going to paraphrase that I really feel sums up my running philosophy. Lance says basically that pain is temporary, whether it lasts a minute, hour, day, week or year, it will end. But the pain of quitting, that will last forever.

Some days I fail at this attitude and cut a run short. But when I'm at my best and most determined, I. Will. Not. Quit. When I'm at my best and most determined, if I stop running, either I've crossed the finish line or I'm passed out on the ground from exhaustion.

This is how I feel about running. Like I said, I don't always succeed but the pain from quitting sticks with me and pushes me to do better.

Matt

Nov 2: 2.27

Nov 4: 2.75

Nov 7: 1.7

Nov 9: 3.11

Total: 9.83

Holy Fun Run

Went for a pretty quick run yesterday at Honey Creek. I'm slowly starting to realize why people love that place so much. It's one of my favorite places in earth.

I ended up running 1.7 miles and that was mainly due to schedule restraints on the weeekend. We had a fair amount of free time but it got eaten into by a couple things. All in all a very good weekend and a good run.

Nov 2: 2.27
Nov 4: 2.75
Nov 7: 1.7

Total: 6.6

Here are some pics from the weekend:
















Matt

--Post From My iPhone

Run For Vocare: Run #2

Yesterday's run went well although shorter than I had planned. I was going to try for a 4 mile run (not including the warm up and cool down walks) but ended up with a nice round 3 mile (2.75 mile run + .25 mile warm up walk).

This change was mainly the result of the route I took. I ended up running around a neighborhood that was unfamiliar to me (at to boot) and was going to do one of those "I'll turn back in the direction I came and just hope to end up back at my truck" sorta deal. Funny thing is, I ended up running to a road and being like "holy crap, this is not where I expected to end up!" So then I knew right where I was and just turned back and headed in a direction I knew. So by the time I got to my truck I wasn't anywhere near the 4 mile mark so i decided to just end the run at a respectable 3 miles.

This weekend is Holy Fun out at Honey Creek. We're leaving immediately after work tomorrow so there probably won't be a chance for a run but I will most definitely get one in Saturday and hopefully I'll be able to post via my phone from HC (I'll be sure to include a sweet pic too, which should be easy and Honey Creek is insanely picturesque).

Nov 2: 2.27 miles

Nov 4: 2.75 miles

Total miles: 5.02

Peace

Matt

5K/Run for Vocare

The St. Johns Road Race was this past Saturday, Halloween morning. The route took us through all kinds of side streets and neighborhoods. Completely opposite of the VSU 5k back in August. That race there were long straight stretches down main streets in Valdosta. My time for that race was 41:49. And my time for the St. Johns 5K was.......35:48! A full 6 minutes faster than my VSU time!. As I crossed the finish line I honestly started to cry, I was just so emotional cuz of how hard I worked to get my time down. I didn't cry however, instead I puked. Yeah, not too proud of that but it was only because I was pushing myself so hard. Irregardless I am very proud of how well I did.

Now, the Run for Vocare, the fundraiser other Vocati and I are doing this month officially started yesterday and I had my first run today. I decided my Nike+ needed recalibrating so I did 2 laps walking and 2 laps running at the track today then I did 2 miles (I did 8 laps and my nike+ said it was more than 2 miles but we'll see how I calculate it later).

I have gotten a fair amount of pledges. And I really owe that to the Very Rev. Dr. Denise Ronn. She basically went around to all the tables at coffee hour and said "so how much are you going to pledge for Matthew?" which was awesome and made me laugh. So thanks Denise!

Look for more posts and updates on how many miles I've run so far.

Nov 2 - 2.27 miles

Matt

I'M BACK!!

I have picked up the habit again. running. I am hoping to really get into the barefoot running thing, so today I ran in my toe shoes!!

I only ran for 15 minutes to make sure I didn't overdo it before I was used to my shoes. But the run was great. The weather was nice, I felt light on my feet, and it didn't hurt my joints. So I'll be honest, I'm pretty pumped. Thats all for now.

pre 5k test run

Tonight I set my Nike+ to "5k" to kind of see where I was. Now I'll preface what I'm about to say by saying that I know it will appear as though I'm making excuses, and maybe I am but there is no way my Nike+ thing was right! It said I ran 7 secs slower than my first 5K back in August. Tonight=41:56 and August=41:49. And I was really pushing myself tonight. Back in August I kid you not, an old lady speed walking passed me. That would not have happened tonight. So for my Friday run, since it is so close to the race I'm just going to recalibrate my Nike+. One lap at the track walking, one lap running. Nice and easy so I don't burn myself out before the race. Look for a brief post Friday then one Saturday.

Here is the chart from my run tonight, take it with a grain of salt:

Okay so I can't get my Nike+ thing going in regards to the online component. Anyway the run appeared to be pretty steady but I feel like the stats were off. Also I wrote this last night waiting for the Nike + to log into my account so all the "today's" should be "yesterday's"

....shouldn't have left you, without a dope beat to step to, step to

Sorry for the delay in posts. I've started a new running schedule. My running days are on Mon, Wed, Fri. Mainly because I play softball on Tues and Thurs. Also I've stepped up my mileage in order to attempt a 10K at some point. The last 4 runs or so have all been 4+ miles 4.5+ if you include the warm up and cool down walks.

Sadly today was the first day i wasn't able to run that distance continually and honestly the only difference I can see is that I ran at the track. I still ended up running 3.7 something miles (.5 of which was walking) so it was still productive and more than the end of my Couch to 5K plan. The problem I had was I got a major stitch in my side and had to walk a lap. But I ended the run with a near sprint lap so it may have evened out.

The other problem I'm running into with the increased distance is finding a suitable route to run. I have a few neighborhoods i like to run in but I usually end up just winging the route. Roughly estimating in my head where i need to run in order to end up hitting the "end workout" button just as I get back to my truck or to my front door. What usually happens is I circle my truck in the parking lot a few times or run past my house then run back. Not a huge deal but kind of annoying.

Anyway the St. Johns road race 5k is this Saturday and I'm pretty excited to see how I do. My last time was 41:49 so that is my time to beat this Sat. Wish me luck!

And Honk! to you guys, I love you both and stick with it!

Matt

it's a comeback! kinda....

So I thought that a week without strenuous exercise would help my foot work itself out. Today was the day to try it out and see how it would go. The result was not that great. It started acting up pretty quickly, which bummed me out, but I ran for a while, walked a little bit, and then ran a while more, concluding with a cool down walk. I ended up going 2.34 miles in 32:33 minutes with a pace of 13:51 and burned 337 calories. It's not where I wanted to be when we started this thing, but it's okay because I'm still freaking determined to accomplish my goal. I'm hoping that by the end of this week I'll be back to the 3, 3.5 mile mark so next week I can start bumping it up a bit. But we'll see - we all know how well my body has liked my plans haha.

Back to today's run.......

I realized that once I got through the initial pain of the tendon, it kinda mellowed out a little bit. Once I would start to walk to relieve some of the pain, it hurt worse. So the running wasn't too bad. :) The only part that was kinda funny and made me slightly jealous was that the girl's softball team was running laps the same time I was, and a whole lot better haha. It did motivate a little bit, though. It's definitely the place I want to be - to run with seemingly no effort and to be able to just punch through a few miles and still be able to breathe when I'm done haha.

But anyway, I hope everyone's Monday went well! And if not, I'm happy that it's over for you. :)

HONK!

slacker

I agree with Liz W, we have been pretty slack about updating. I haven't kept up with a consistent running schedule but I have been able to get in 3 runs a week since completing the C25K plan. I decided to try and give the 10 plan on the cool runnings page a shot. I think some of what it asks you to do may be limited by my location and other factors but I know this, not having a plan is going to kill my motivation so i need to get one asap.

Here is my run from tonight:

I was quite amazed at how even it was. Slow and steady wins the race.

Matt

just a little quicky

I love that we've become quite the slackers lately with the whole updating thing haha.

I just wanted to do a little update about this week. I haven't been running. I decided that maybe a week would give my foot some time to heal and get better. It's been a little bit sore in the mornings, but not too bad. So hopefully when I start back running on Monday it'll be pretty fantastic and mostly pain free. That's the hope.

Anyway, I hope everyone's week has been going well - much love friends. :)

HONK!

I'm back baby!

Man it has been a long week. I haven't had a full C25K run in over a week, until today. I won't bore you with the details of what has been going on as you know already but here is a quick run down of my runs since last Monday:

This is where I locked my keys in the car and had to literally run home from the track, not fun. Then took Amanda to the ER and our week of happy fun times in the hospital began.

This was my first run after Amanda was out of the hospital. Wasn't really into it but felt like I needed to do something to stay with it or running might have fallen by the wayside.

This is where I knew I needed to step it up but still ease back into the full 3 miles. A good run overall.

And finally Week 8 Day 3 is in the books! It took longer than I would have liked but I got it done. I would have liked to have blown straight through C25k bus as you all know, life happens.

So its on to week 9! I'm very excited and I hope to see you on the other side of C25K!

Matt

*insert title HERE*

Um yeah, so I've run three times since my last update. Oops. So here's a quick recap:

Wed: 3.44 miles in 49:09

Sat: 2.04 miles in 28:03

Today: 3:47 miles in 40:11

I didn't run on Friday because Thursday night's yoga kicked me in the FACE. I was definitely sore on Friday morning and just knew there would be no way I could make it haha. So I ran on Saturday. I had every intention of going the whole 3 miles, but I realized that I probably didn't have time since I had to be in Carrollton so early for class. That's why it's only 2 miles instead of 3.

I'm still having to walk a little bit, but today I walked a lot less today than I did last week. Hopefully by the end of this week or next I'll be up to all running again. On a side note, I couldn't find my headphones this morning so I ran without music. I thought it would be pretty miserable, but time still seemed to fly by. Okay so moving on.....I've been trying different strides to help out my foot and I think I've found a stride that helps keep the pain away. There is a bit of an issue with the new stride though haha. I've been getting pretty winded when I'm running a lot quicker than normal. I finally figured it out that it's because my stride is longer, therefore I'm running a little bit faster than I'm used to. I'm totally okay with the switch out of more labored breathing than my foot filling with pain haha. It just means that with more time I'll get used to the new stride and my breathing will get better. The cool part about the faster pace is that I'm only a minute and a half away from a 10 minute mile! Today I did a mile in 11:34. :) I'm happy about that - a 10 minute mile is my short term goal for the moment haha.

On another note, I still love yoga. It makes me happy. :) And it kinda hit me when I was talking to my neighbor last week about my running and yoga and he goes "you're working out 5 days a week?! Wow! That's awesome, Liz." I never really thought about the whole 5 days a week thing - it's kinda funny! haha! Just think where we were just a few months ago - incredibly sore, thankful that we made it through the first few rotations of 60/90, and overall pretty proud of ourselves. Well, I'd have to say we're still pretty proud of ourselves, and if we're not we stinkin' should be, and there's still some hard parts of our runs, but I think we've done a pretty good darn-tootin' job. :)

And on one more note, I bought more running shoes haha. I didn't really have to, but I did. The whole reasoning (I keep justifying myself for a reason other than the fact that I just wanted them haha) is to switch out the shoes so that each pair will last longer. They're the new Lunar Glides by Nike (go figure). Here they are! :)

Oh! And I've been meaning to thank Laura E for suggesting orthotics for my shoes - I really think they've helped. :)

Till next time friends! HONK!

This train is bound for glory

Todays run was good. Almost great actually. :) But first I must update about last week.



So last week was the horrible pain in the foot, which didn't make me happy. But I ran on Thursday and was really glad about it. Granted, I did walk some, but I was still glad I made it the whole way through. I started walking each time when I started to feel that my tendon was getting all painful. That way I wasn't pushing myself so hard that it was crazy pain and I wouldn't be able to get through the whole distance. I end up running the last little leg back to my house that I normally use as my warm up and cool down run just because I was so dern happy that I made it haha. And it wasn't the old man shuffle, either. I BOOKED it. And then right when I got up to the corner to turn into my neighborhood, I SPRINTED. It was like someone was chasing me and I needed to run for my life. Yeah, totally couldn't breathe when I stopped, but I was happy. :) So Thursday I ran for 3.06 miles in 47:59 minutes.

I wanted to catch up with Day 2 & 3 over the weekend, but it just didn't happen haha. I was so tired and busy that it would have been a pretty pointless effort haha. So I ran this morning with the goal of just starting on schedule with Week 9. I've come to find that I need this schedule thing. I'm not really good at planning runs on days that I don't normally run haha. That may sound weird, but I've come to like my schedule and how it all fits together haha. But I digress.....

Today's goal was to make it the whole 3 miles, but if not, then just do the 2.75. I did walk a couple of times, but not nearly as much as I did on Thursday (yay!) and I changed up my route a little bit. I wanted the change just because I felt slightly unmotivated to run the normal way back, so I ran on the sidewalk on the main road. Originally I wanted to avoid the main road b/c I didn't want to look all crazy trying to run while people drove by (not really sure why this mattered since I wouldn't know 99.99% of those people), but I did it this morning. :) I liked the change - I think it helped me pump up the end. But yeah so I ran down this last stretch to my house and then a little ways into the neighborhood to get the whole 3 miles and a cool down walk. I was really excited. It also helped that the last song playing was "This Train" by the Indigo Girls where one line is "This train is bound for glory" - I felt that I was on that track. So that was helpful. Plus it was sprinkling for about half of my run and it felt really good haha. Okay so here's the facts: ran 3.33 miles in 53:28. Hopefully next week I'll be able to start shaving off time. :)

Dang this was long! haha! But I really enjoyed today's run with a dash of walking. :) I'm so proud of us!! :) Yay!

HONK!

makin it rain!

Well I didn't make it rain, God did. But I did run in the rain today! I have to say it was awesome. I made it though with out any major problems, no having to pee, not bolts of lightning. I did have a side stitch every now and then, and I guess what could only be called a shoulder stitch....? (idk) I was so happy to run in the rain though. It wasn't too heavy but it was stronger than a mist. The only really negative i see is I worry about my shoes and how they handle the getting wet and drying off again. but I'm sure it will be fine. Here are the stats from my run:

Pretty good I thought. I do have a problem sometimes with my iPod when it gets wet. The controls get a little messed up but its fine when it dries so there. Week 8 Day 3 here i come!

Matt

rain out

So i get home and start to get ready for my run, then i hear it. The rain. I literally grabbed all my stuff and ran out the door. I was so pumped. Running in the rain was just what I needed this week. It was kind of down hill from there. First my iPod started messing up, which could only be attributed to the rain, then my shorts were getting heavy and kind of sliding down so kept pulling them up. Then the one other runner at the track took a hard left turn and cut across the football field because of the MASSIVE BOLT OF LIGHTNING! At that point I thought to myself "Self, you probably won't get hit by lightning, but why risk it?" Thus ended my run. Here are the stats:

Was going for week 8 day 2 today but that is now pushed back tomorrow.

Matt

i had to pee again, just sayin

So i had to run to the bathroom again in the middle of my run, really? I feel like those old guys in the prostate medicine commercial "Matt doesn't have a going problem, he has a growing problem..." But all in all the run went well. Pretty steady i felt. The little graphic I get from Nike+ seems to be a little "heart monitor-esque" in its sporadic up and downness:

Wow, the run really didn't feel that up and down. I guess steady for me is not stopping. Which is pretty good.

And in closing, Week 8, I am going to kick your ass! so look the eff out!

Matt

Not the best ever

Well, my running days are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. So I get up all crazy early like normal and get my run started. I do my warm up walk and start running. It didn't take very long for me to stop running and start walking. My knee was fine, but it was that stinking tendon that was on FIRE through my whole foot. Not really happy about it. So I decide that I'll just have to walk for a while instead of running. So I walked 2.04 miles in 34:32 minutes. I wanted to keep moving, but I was not happy about walking and not running. My main thinking is/was "I've gone 7 whole weeks and NOW it decides to hurt? TOTALLY not fair! I'm almost to Week 9! UGH!" Plus another special explicative when my mom asked me how it went right when I got back haha. But I understand that it was the right decision so that I wouldn't seriously hurt my foot. I'm definitely not counting Monday as my W8D1, so I think I'll try to give it another go tomorrow. We'll just have to see how I feel in the morning hah.

Speaking of how I feel tomorrow, I had my first yoga class tonight! I really liked it. It was sorta challenging and kinda not all at the same time - I guess the perfect mix of both really. I really like the teacher and I feel like this will definitely be beneficial for me. I have a different teacher on Thursday, so I'm excited about learning more from someone else and whatnot. I was so relaxed at the end, when we were doing the end relaxing poses, I bout fell asleep haha. But overall I'm glad about it. :)

The main determining factor with running tomorrow or not is if I'm sore from tonight or not. So tomorrow could be my W8D1 or it might be Friday (more healing/resting time for the tendon in my foot). I'm hoping that it's tomorrow and that I just rock it out. But we'll see.

The random picture of the day is from my good friend's wedding this past weekend. This is me with some pretty awesome friends from college. And I love weddings! :)

Till next time friends! HONK!

like a Russian race horse

Week 7 is done! It's crazy how close we are to being done. 9 weeks seemed so far away when we started. This weekend has been crazy for us. Friday night we went to a fund raiser dinner for my old campus ministry and the speaker was the first double amputee to complete the Ironman Hawaii triathlon. So i felt like a total slacker after that, kidding. He was great. Then we went to Adel and spent the night so we could be up there early for the garage sale, then there was the garage sale then we went to the FSU game where we got rained on, I mean like raining buckets for the entire first half. But all in all it was a good weekend.

I tell you all that though so you know where my body and mind were as I ran today: exhausted. I feel like I cheated again today cuz I had to stop about a mile and a half in this time to pee. Which i know is a valid excuse but I feel like I wouldn't have been able to make it through the whole thing if I hadn't stopped, regardless of having to pee. I guess it isn't a big deal but I feel like I'm falling short somehow. I hold myself to a pretty high standard with certain things. Things I care about and am passionate about. Which is good, as long as its not an unreachable standard I guess. Anyway, here is my run:

Till next time

Matt

a little edgy

Well to report on my last two runs. I ran with Matt on Saturday around Lauren's neighborhood. It was a solid run with some terrible hills and... terrain. Most of it had sidewalks. But then there was the section that did not. And it instead had pinecones and roots that had to be watched for. Anyway. I loved getting to run with someone, and I wasn't expecting that. I was nervous that it would be too tough to chat at all, or that our paces wouldn't work out. But all of that turned out to be fine. My next run was yesterday. I actually loved it. By the time I got home my right hip flexor and my left ileotibial band were both in pain, but not terribly so. Unfortunately after walking around all afternoon, they did hurt pretty badly, but today they are on the mend. Because I didn't want to further injure them, I didn't run today.

Ok. I know I am about a solid week behind. It isn't so much that this is being pushed to a back burner, its just that my job is such an important and terrifying burner, that 90% of my focus has to be there. I can't risk injury, or lack of sleep, or anything that makes my mind feel any lack of control. I am sorry that I'm not as involved as I want to be. I can't even put to words how incredibly and constantly overwhelmed I am right now. And it seems the things that seem to help don't include running. Not because of the actual running, but because if I run at the gym it takes a disproportionate chunk of time from my day, and regardless of location then it messes with my showering routine and meals schedule (since I have to wait a weirdly long time after eating to run), and makes more laundry for me to do, and just generally feels irresponsible when my house is a wreck, and my mind is the same. Things that calm my mind include cleaning and organizing. And sleeping.

I am hoping to cancel my gym membership and only focus on running outside for a couple months. Running outside is easier mentally and doesn't require me to pack yet another back when I leave for work in the mornings. The fact that there are no scheduled walking breaks in the runs seems to help me zone out while I run now, so I am hopeful that soon I'll see running as a way to decompress, not as an inconvenience. That all being said, thank you for bearing with me during this really rough transition in my life.

Even the Avett Brothers couldn't help me

Ugh. Wednesday and today's run was just not that great. The runs so bad that the Avett Brothers, a great band, couldn't even keep me motivated. I've mentioned the recurring knee thing, and now there's a tendon thing. The tendon on top of my left foot has started to get pretty agitated when I run, and it gets pretty painful. If it were just my calves that were on fire while running, it wouldn't be a big deal. But nooooooo, my leg feels the need to take it a step further and cause me more pain. Ugh. So Wednesday I had to stop a few times and stretch out my calves and the top of my left foot in order to keep going. So Wednesday's run was 3.03 miles, 46:44 minutes, and 435 calories. Today's run was 3 miles, 47:04 minutes, and 431 calories.

Wednesday's run was rough, but today was even worse. I couldn't run the whole time because of all the pain in my foot. :( So freaking sad. So I did my warm up walk, ran for a while, walked for a little bit, ran some more, walked just a little bit, and then ran the rest of the way. I didn't keep track of how much I ran versus walked specifically, but I know that I ran more than walked. I was just not happy about the walking, but I had to in order to keep going. I'm just sad about the whole thing. I mean, Monday wasn't too bad, but it just got progressively worse this week. I'm really hoping that the yoga will help with the running, along with just being repetitive each time. Plus I bought a knee brace and an ankle brace for support while I run, so let's hope that it makes a difference.

Speaking of the knee and ankle brace, here's my leg all braced up:

I also bought the Runner's World Training Journal today. Hopefully it'll be pretty productive. :) But for real, today during the run, one of the ONLY reasons I kept going was because ya'll keep me accountable for my share of the "work" haha. I know that ya'll would make me hold up my end of the bargain, so that definitely kept me going. Yay geese!

Honk!

that's my dog

Today I decided to go for my Week 7 Day 2 run with my dog, Kane. Overall bad idea. In the future Kane and I will stick with walks not runs. He made it about a mile then I had to take him back to the truck. I drove down to the college because I thought it would be neat to run around campus and in theory it was. But with Kane with me and all the students on the sidewalks and such it ended up being a hassle. Since I was near the college I parked at my mother in laws church and was able to drop Kane off there. Unfortunately that came around the one mile marker so I had to pause my workout on Nike+. I kind of feel like I cheated but it had to be done. Anyway here is the chart of my run:

And here is a picture of Kane:

Yes those are Tigger ears. Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing about y'alls runs.

Matt

2 runs 1 post

So first thing is first. Saturday's run with Liz Baykur was great. It was great in the sense that I ran it with Liz, other than that it sucked balls. I told Liz when we got done that next time we were finding a nice flat track somewhere. Seriously, it was very challenging. Lots of hills. We ran near Lauren's house in Sandy Springs. We used Nike+. The link to the run is here. Even though it was really difficult, I'm glad I did it.

Now today's run I decided to set the Nike+ to do a 5k for the distance since Week 7 all the runs are 2.5 with the warm ups making them 3 miles. I figured just go ahead and do a 5k, so that is the plans all this week. Today's run went well. I didn't run around a track but did a big loop cutting through a nearby neighborhood, then through the Big Lots parking lot and making my way back to my house. I felt like the run was really steady but the graphic tells a different story:

Still, nothing too dramtic. The dip there at the end is me walking although I can't really explain the big increase at the very very end cuz I didn't start running again. Oh well. Hope all is well and it was great seeing you guys this weekend. I hope we see each other again very soon.

Matt

I hate the end of vacation. Boo.

This weekend I was down at Lake Blackshear in Cordele and I was definitely sad to leave. :( I was supposed to run on Monday morning before I left, but I ended up running Sunday night because I wanted to get it over with haha. But before that I walked 2 miles with my stepmom on Saturday. And on Friday was my Week 6 Day 3 run. So run on Friday, walk on Saturday, run Week 7 Day 1 on Sunday. Oy vey. My legs were not very happy about the walking and then the running hah. But I, once again, employed the old man shuffle to get through the 2.5 miles. So Sunday night I went 2.82 miles in 42:36 minutes (eh, could be better), and burned 406 calories. It was cool to run near the lake because while I was running down the road, you got glimpses of the lake every now and then. The only downer about the run is that the road wasn't always even (which is a given), but especially around the curves in the road it was a bit crazy. So yeah, my left leg from the knee down was on FIRE from just about the beginning. Ugh. But other than that I was happy that I finished. Gotta love the endorphins.

Other than running and walking during the weekend, I went kayaking both Saturday and Sunday, and rode/drove the boat around the lake. My brother is the skier and tuber of the two of us kids, so he did that while I watched. It was fun. :) I also took a hammock down there, so both Saturday and Sunday mornings I was outside on the hammock reading for a while. :) It was quite enjoyable. :) But here are a few pictures of the sunset Friday and Saturday night.

We're almost done! Yay! Then it's just working on time and building up for the 10k! (whenever that may be, of course. :) )

Honk!

Do the shuffle! The old man shuffle, that is.

Soooo yeah...in order to make it through the whole run, I employed the use of the old man shuffle. It was a good idea since lately I have been running out if steam halfway through the run. But I made it haha. I'm not sure of my time and everything because I haven't really looked or been able to upload it. I'm down at Lake Blackshear for the weekend with the fam with no Internet access so yeah. I am excited about running here at the lake on Monday though. :)

Oh! So Thursday I calibrated my Nike+ at the gym's track. It wasn't off too bad so that's a bonus. I was definitely feeling the exercise though. I walked a mile and then ran a mile. Goodness gracious I'm glad I don't have to run every day! My legs were not happy. Hence another reason for the old man shuffle on Friday.

But anyway I'll write in more detail on Monday when I'm back in town. :)

Honk!

i passed the eff out

Yesterday I talked myself out of running in the blazing heat at about 5pm and talked myself into some pizza for dinner with Amanda. Overall a good choice. So I set off for my run at the track around dusk. The run itself was really great. It was one of those runs where you just kept going not really noticing that you were tired or in pain. I ended up finishing around 8:30. The link to my stats is HERE.

The dips at the beginning and the end are my walking laps. And like I said before I didn't notice much of anything as I ran so having that many peaks and valley's in the run kind of surprised me.

Something else that surprised me was that I passed the eff out when I laid down at about 9:30 last night. Next thing I know it is 2:30 am and I've missed 2 texts and 2 IM's from Liz W cuz I missed our Compline via Skype (again, my bad B). Needless to say while Week 6 Day 3 was good, it wore me the heck out.

Today Amanda and I head to Atlanta to visit for the weekend. Hopefully the weekend will include at least one run with Liz Baykur and at least one meal with both Liz Baykur and Liz W. I love you guys and can't wait to see you!

Here is a funny picture I found on the Texts from last night photo roll on flickr.

ugh.

Today was hard for me for some reason. I got really winded pretty quickly, which didn't make me very happy. It was slightly discouraging because I thought I'd be better off since there was walking involved and last week we ran 2 miles without walking. So yeah, I was wrong. Again haha. I wanted to use the walking part to just refuel, shall we say, so that the last half wouldn't be bad. Yeah, it was. I just don't get why I'm so winded! Maybe I should slow my pace back down a bit, but the stubborn side of me doesn't want to because I want to get faster. Such a dilemma. Any suggestions?

Today I ran 2.89 miles, 13:39 pace, and 416 calories. It took about 40 minutes (as of now my wristband thingy doesn't feel like uploading....boo), which is okay, but not the best. I'm really hoping that Friday goes well. I'm gonna need a run that I feel glad about haha. But I wasn't bummed for too long, because as Elle Woods says, "Endorphins make you happy!" Which is true. I was in a good mood when I was done, which I attributed to being glad to being done and still breathing as well as the endorphins.

I've decided that I'm going to start doing yoga. There's a place near Rita's (yay!) that isn't too expensive and it's a 12 week program. I'd go twice a week (my off days), so I think that would help with my muscles not being so sore and just being able to really stretch out a couple times a week. So I'll let you know when that's all official. I've always wanted to do yoga, so I'm pretty excited about it haha.

Here's another picture from Antigua. This was a church that was pretty run down that was near where the marching band was performing for some kids from the elementary school. I thought it was pretty. :)

Honk!

Calibration station

I went to the track today to calibrate my Nike+. After walking a lap and running a lap it seemed a little off still but close enough. The walking was dead on but when I ran a lap it said I did .27 instead of .25. I'm not all that worried.

After I did my calibration I went home and ran around the neighborhood. I'm going to post a mile or 2 mile route on the Nike+ map thing on the website soon. If you haven't gone yet its really cool, other Nike+ users post routes so if you you're looking for a specific distance and don't want to use the track then there they are! Oh I also bought some sunscreen and one of those little pouch things to go on my shoe so it doesn't feel like I'm running on a rock with the Nike+ sensor.

Here is another picture of me from the gorge. It was really awesome and I think would make a fun trip for us to do one day.

Peace

Matt

Nike+ and me

Today was my first day running with Nike+. First off I have to say that I like Nike+ a lot. Or I will once I get it calibrated. I did week 6 day 2 at the track today, so with the warm up lap and cool down lap equaled 11 laps or 2.75 miles. Well Nike+ said I ran 2.93 miles so i think its fair to say it needs to be calibrated.

As for the run itself, not at all bad. I did notice a lot more random pains in the legs and side but they never lasted long. I'll go ahead and give my Nike+ stats but understand that they are a little off: 41:10 mins, 2.93 miles, 14:01 mile pace and 653 calories burned. Now again, not sure about the accuracy. I plan on doing a light run at the track to calibrate tomorrow.

And now a funny dog picture:

OM NOM NOM!

Matt

clever title.

I had a good run!!!! (W6D1) I was really starting to get run down, in all honesty, and a little discouraged. I felt like running was just one more thing I had to do, on top of my scary, time consuming, and exhausting new job. Not only that, but adding an activity that makes me feel like I'm dying because I can't breathe and I have side stitches... well its just not a great motivator. Today though, most of the time, I didn't really notice that I was running. I kinda had to estimate a little bit on my timing, but according to GoogleMaps, I completed 2.6 miles, in 29 or 30 minutes. My iPod did a good job of giving me good running songs, and I didn't really hurt too much today. My right hip does give me a little trouble towards the end, but I'm getting better at stretching so I'm doin ok. ALSO! I ran a little extra so that I could get to run down the big hill, and then not have to run up it again. So that helped the motivation for sure. In the sidewalk, besides the place that says "YOUR MOMM" there is a place that says "LOVE" which just seemed nice and positive for today. I thought it might rain while I was out there, but it didn't.

Anyway, thanks so much for being so continually encouraging. I'm pretty sure I would have given up before today without yall. And obviously I am so so glad I didn't :) Here's to being runners! Cheers!

Tomorrow I work on the floor (and I get to stay on my medsurg floor, which I'm happy about), Thursday I have class (then I will move on to W6 D2), Friday I have to work on the floor again (ack!), and then I should be free for Sat and Sunday, and back to work on the new floor on Monday (scary!!). And that's my life.

Not so fast there, friend, aka, me.

Okay.

So today was Week 6, Day 1. I had some pretty positive thoughts about it and didn't think it would be too bad since there wasn't too much addition to the distance. Yeahhhhhh, about that....I was wrong. Since my train of thought was that it wouldn't be that bad, especially because of the walking, I wanted today to start building up my speed. The first half mile I was done in about 6 minutes, which I was pretty impressed! So I slowed down a bit for the walking in order to rest up enough to tackle the 3/4 mile section. I started off pretty strong, but it felt like it lasted FOREVER! So I get to the next walking segment (yay!) and think that it won't be that bad because it's just another 1/2 mile. It wasn't too bad, but the last 15th of a mile bout killed me haha. When I uploaded my race info, my little line chart was good until the last part and it was another big ole dip haha. But here's the stats for today's run: 3.13 miles (warm up and cool down and walking around the crosswalk until the light changed that took FOREVER), 44:39 minutes, an average of 14:15 per mile (probably because of the slower walking), and 450 calories. Not too bad, but maybe Wednesday will be a little bit easier. :)

I've put up a picture of Henry, so here's Millie. This is right after she got her summer haircut at the beginning of summer (she usually has long/shaggy hair). When I picked her up from the groomers I definitely laughed pretty loud. She looked so naked! And she wasn't entirely sure about the lessening of hair, either haha. But isn't she just so freaking cute?!

HONK!

Well, I got through Week 5 Day 3. What a killer. Not only was I grumpy the whole time, but it was TOUGH! Some of it was just me being in a bad mood, but boy, I pretty much wanted to quit. I mean, I was being a little dramatic, but a little not. Hahah. I got through it, at a not fast pace of 4.5 mph (I started at 5.0 mph but it was just not gonna happen the whole way). I burned 219 calories, ran 2.53 miles, in 36:02 minutes. I think I wanna start running longer runs outside. Inside is SO monotonous, and there is never a downhill to catch your breath and some motivation on. Since I've had a little recovery time, I can say that I'm really glad I ran, and that I'm proud of myself and want to keep going. Thank god I've got my geese!!

In other news, today's class was boring and tedious simultaneously. We are learning how to read heart monitor strips, and the class set up is just completely not logical. So there was that. Plus I asked Natasha for my schedule AGAIN. And she still doesn't have it. It is done, just not with her and not online in the computer staffing program. Sigh. So I know I work Wednesday. And pray I don't have a weekend shift. Not only is all the vocare stuff going on, which is fun and social, but it's my older brother's birthday dinner Sunday night. Grrr.

Random picture time. Here is one of me and my little brother on the first day of school. I was going to 5th grade... Patrick was going to 1st. Please notice how we are the same height. Hahah. The pic isn't great quality, as I scanned it from the original.

Ima lobster/gym issues

Okay so its not that bad but the last two days I have gotten A LOT of sun. I did my week 5 day 3 yesterday and went swimming for 4-5 hours so I got fairly red. Then today I went running during the hottest part of the day, around 3ish. Because I had run yesterday I could feel my arms baking. So from now on I'm either going to be a little more careful of when I run or get some sunscreen.

So Week 6 Day 1. It went pretty well. I was glad to have the walking break in there. My calves didn't hurt as bad today so that was good. I need to try and figure out what I can do to alleviate the burning or just make them stronger so it doesn't hurt as bad. All in all a very positive run I would say.

I'm really itching to get in the gym and lift some weights but money is a little sparse right now. But I think a gym membership might be in the works in the next cpl months. I also am trying to think of where in Valdosta has a lap pool and the only places I can think of are the YMCA and the VSU rec center. And the rec center is the only one to have an indoor pool. So right now it is the leading candidate. The downside is that they have limited hours for alumni and the general hours of operation are very sporadic due to holidays and winter break and summer break etc.

Anyway here are a cpl pics of the floor plan:

this is the 1st floor with the 3 basketball courts and 3 racquet ball courts, as well as the aerobics classroom, locker rooms, rock climbing wall and pool.

this is the 2nd floor with a walking/running track highlighted in blue (it looks down onto the courts which is cool) also this is where all the actual weight lifting machines are and treadmills and cardio equipment is. And the rock climbing wall comes up through to the 2nd floor near the cardio machines, its that open space just left of the bottom left corner of the track. It is a pretty sweet place and I've spent many a hour there back in the day when i was actually working out.

till next time

Matt

maybe I should be more specific....

Okay, so Matt has run in the rain a couple of times now, and every time I think it's going to rain when I run, it doesn't. So I was totally looking forward to running in the rain. So much so that when I went to sleep Thursday night, I was hoping that it was going to rain when I ran on Friday. When the dogs woke me up about 6:30 it was a nice rain and I was okay with that and thought it would be nice to run in. When I got up a couple of hours later, it was POURING. Well, I asked for it, so I might as well run in it, right? The minute I walk outside, it stops. For about 30 seconds. And then the heavens opened and I was soaked soon after. I rain in TORRENTIAL rain. And I kinda liked it. ;) But I was definitely hoping for a lighter rain haha. But the best part was that as I was running, I passed a house where a nice looking elderly man had come outside with his umbrella in his red flannel pj pants and a beige sweatshirt to get his paper and says to me, "A little wet today, huh?" I just answered with a smile, "Yes, sir!" Haha - that was definitely the good moment. :)

Now on to the actual run....oy vey. It was difficult, that's for sure. I was betting on about 40 minutes or so to get through both the warm up and cool down walks and the actual 2 miles. The first mile went pretty well - the second mile, now that was the hard part. I had to stop a couple of times and stretch out my calves a little bit. They were just not happy with me. So as I was going down the street and looking at my Nike+ wristband counting my mileage, I kept thinking that I was going faster than I really was and I should just circle back so that I wasn't doing a forever long cool down walk back to my house. I circled around about three times haha. My first mile was a pretty good pace, but the second mile was definitely the old man shuffle, without a doubt. I think that was the first time that I was really incredibly ready to be done.....oy vey! So I said I thought I'd get done in about 40 minutes, right? Oh it was 34:24 minutes for 2.58 miles and 371 calories burned with an average pace of 13:18 a mile. Yay! I wasn't happy about the stopping and stretching parts or the old man shuffles (I set some high expectations for myself sometimes), but overall I was happy with myself. And the rain? Oh, yeah - this is what I looked like when I was done:

The shirt grew a few sizes, for sure - I promise it's not that long! Nor is it that dark - this is a really light grey shirt and baby pink shorts, not that pretty regular pink color. (If you can't tell, I promise there was a definite color change!) I'm excited to see how much improvement I get done next week just b/c it's more running and a longer distance. My goal is to pick up my pace and to get at ease with running outside. So we'll see what happens!:)

And on a completely unrelated note, FSU's first game is against Miami on Labor Day and in honor of that I bought a new tshirt. I liked the front and never unfolded it to see the back until just now when I got home and got even more excited about it when I saw the back. So here ya go Matt! :)

Front Back

GO NOLES! :)

I about didn't make it today

Today was week 5 day 3 for me and it was really tough. This week I've run a total of 9ish miles, from last Saturday's 5k to today's 2 miler. And that is NOT including the walking segments of the training days. So I think I may have over exerted myself some. Today's run my calves (calf's?) were burning almost from the start so I really wasn't sure if I was going to make it. But I settled into a little bit faster pace than the old man shuffle and just went for it. Soon enough 8 laps became 4 laps left then 3, then 2, then 1. It was probably my slowest time in a while. Something like 38 mins to do 10 laps (1 warm up lap + 8 running laps + 1 cool down lap).

So before I left the house to run my sister called me and told me that she needed me to watch my oldest nephew, Tucker, for a few hours today. While I love my nephew, I don't so well with last minute changes and I had planned on having most of the day with no plans. So I did my run and tried to put it out of my mind and when I got home I called my sister to have Tucker bring his swimming trunks because I thought we could go swimming at the Jester's. But it turns out I didn't need to watch my nephew so I spent the afternoon at the Jester's swimming. Which was awesome because A) I love swimming and 2) it gave me a chance to stretch in the pool which is much easier than in...air...? easier than in not pool....you get my meaning.

And in closing since I forgot to take a picture of the Jester's pool here is a place where I would like to go swimming. I don't know where it is just a picture I found on the interwebs.

Pretty huh?

Matt

Slow and steady wins the race

Yeah I was forced into running slowly for the second half of my Week 5 Day 2 workout. I was going strong for the first half, at a decent pace of 5.0 mph. And then the walking segment was also going well... and then I had 4 sips of water. Bad idea. About 0.1 mile into the last running part I got some side stitches from hell. I tried to keep going at the 5.0 pace and lasted another 0.12 miles, then dropped down to 4.5 mph for the rest of the running. All in all I burned 203 calories, went 2.56 miles, in 36:58 minutes. Woot.

I am like... a fan of the couch to 5 K, on facebook. They post articles pretty much every day. What I've read so far has been good, even though I am sometimes suspicious, from a nursing standpoint, of the validity of some sports/exercise articles. But so far I like these.

I am pretty sure I had a lot more to write about but forgot it. So. Here is a picture of my mom's dog, back when she was a puppy. You cannot tell from this picture what an awesome dog she is. Her name is Kenzie, and her ears move independently from each other, like little satellite dishes on top of her head. Also, she has an almost constant sarcastic smirk on her face (developed after puppy-hood, during which she usually just looked terrified). She also goes by Foxy Woxy and Mrs. Boodle. Both characters from somewhat obscure books. The second picture is when I made her stand between two reindeer around Christmas time. She was thoroughly unamused; I was thoroughly amused.

Big ol' fat rain

So today should have been my Week 5 Day 3 but like a dummy I did Week 5 Day 1 twice. So today I did Week 5 Day 2 and it was awesome! I say that not because I kicked the run's ass or anything, the run was actually pretty tough. It was awesome because I got to run in the rain! It was coming down HARD too. See this picture:
Yeah that shirt was a blueish grey and the shorts just regular grey. I was raining water out of my shirt as I ran. Here is another crazy pic.


That pile is everything I had on while I was running. I know shoes weigh a lot anyway but all that weighed 6.5 lbs!

So as you guys know I've been having a rough week. But I think I turned a corner today as I was running in the rain. I told Liz W that the run was very cathartic for me mentally and emotionally. I felt very cleansed after. All in all I did 2 3/4 miles (including a 1/4 mile warm up and a 1/4 mile cool down) in approx 36 mins. A pretty good days work.

Matt
-- Post From My iPhone

I'm a walking ad for Nike.....

True story - I'm such a Nike nerd now, and I don't even mean to be haha. I started with the shoes, then bought some shorts and sports bras, and now the Nike+ system hah. They should pay me for endorsements haha. I went to the gym today for my Day 2 and I used the new Nike+ thingy. Sidenote on that btw - I had the receiver plugged into my computer to charge and my computer was on my bed. I got home and the dogs came downstairs, and as Henry jumped on the bed, my computer fell off. With the receiver still in it. It didn't break in the USB port, but it did crack and the display is only about 3/4 visible. But it still works so that's positive. Needless to say, I was not happy at the dogs for a bit last night hah.

Okay so back to the story:

I had to change treadmills a couple of times before I got really started, but I went by the mileage on my Nike+ bracelet instead of the treadmill b/c then it'd be off a little bit. But yeah, the first couple of treadmills didn't like me and I slipped a couple of times. So DUMB. But unfortunately the one I ended up on is the same one I've had before but forgot that it rocked a little bit when I ran. So the music got a bit louder in my ears to drown out my heavy steps and the rocking noise. Okay, totally went on a tangent again, so yeahhhhhhhh......

I measured by distance today, which like everyone else has said took a little bit longer. The cool part is that it didn't take a ton longer, so that was happy. :) I was going pretty strong the first 3/4 mile and was very happy when the walking started haha. Once the second 3/4 started I was starting to feel the nice annoying-ness of my knee, soon followed by my hip of the same leg. Boo. But it wasn't crazy painful, just really annoying. Today in total, with the 5 minute warm up walk and 5 minute cool down walk, I went a total of 2.44 miles, 350 calories burned(!!), and it took me 38 min and 38 seconds. Yay!

So I'm looking forward to Friday and the nonstop running of two miles, if only for the reason to see how I'm doing. I'm going to run outside so that if I do start to die, it will be where (presumably) not many people will be able to see me die, versus at the gym, there are people in very close proximity that can see my demise. Plus it's just smarter to run outside for this one.

This is Henry, one of my dogs and the one that jumped too close to the computer and made the "receiver incident" happen.

Okay, this was crazy long. My b, yo. ;) HONK! :)