Running?

So I had a wake up call last week when I realized that it was already the end of March, meaning only 2 months until the Bayshore 10K, and I am no where close to running 6 miles. I've been running here and there this semester, but not really sticking to any sort of plan. With knee and shin pain coming and going I haven't wanted to push myself too hard to avoid real injury. I have been working out, quite a bit lately, so it's not like I'm totally out of shape, but running tends to be more of a mental and physical challenge for me that biking or just going on the elliptical.

My problems with running


- hydration, I'm horrible at remembering to bring my water bottle and I know for a fact that I get distracted and run down when I'm thirsty and my mouth is dry
- time, I get discouraged by how slow I'm running so it makes me want to just stop and walk
- counting laps, it's hard to zone out when you're trying to remember what lap you're on and how many you've run vs. walked.
- mentality, I find that I present numbers before I start running and only do what I think I can do without listening to what my body is telling me it can do or pushing myself at all. I'll tell myself oh just start with 3 laps straight and go from there, so I just do 3 laps and give up when I really could have kept going for at least another few laps.

I don't even know if you could call what I do "running" it's more like a jog....a slow one at that. I try not to focus on time, but rather just focus on distance. Tonights run, although I really have no clue how long it took me felt like my first real accomplishment all semester. My shins didn't hurt, my knees didn't throb and I almost lost track of how many laps I'd done I was so focused on the music blaring from my iPod.

Here's the mile breakdown:

Mile 1:

• laps 1-2 walking warm up
• laps 3-7 run 
• lap 8 walk
• lap 9 run

Mile 2:

• lap 1 walk
• lap 2 run
• laps 3-4 walk
• laps 5-6 run
• lap 7 walk
• lap 8 run
• lap 9 walk

Mile 3:

• lap 1 run
• laps 2-3 walk
• lap 4 run
• lap 5 walk
• lap 6 run
• lap 7-8

I lost track of my laps in the last mile and I knew I was going to miss one, bummer. I was trying to focus on just the running laps but wanted to know how many I walked as well for the mile breakdown so I got a little confused. Maybe next time I'll just bring a piece of paper I can write laps down on when I go to take water breaks (typically after every mile.)

- - -

Overall, today was a good day. I walked around in tennis shoes (no UGGs) and my North Face jacket (without having to wear a sweatshirt underneath it). The sun was really shining today and the wind wasn't too strong, but the air was still crisp (I just want it to be in the 50's already!) 

This evening I had my first encounter with Red Robin (Yum).....really, yum. Because I was a new comer I opted for one of their burgers, a single order of cheese sticks (because Corie and Nicole both got some and they sounded good), and a chocolate milk shake. Yeah, I know, it was a LOT of food. We should have really split cheese sticks because I could hardly eat my burger once it came. So I ended up bring half of the meal home (two cheese sticks and half the burger). As full as I felt walking out, I was happy I didn't totally stuff my face. Plus now I have a nice lunch for tomorrow. We also made a grocery trip to Meijer, where I always spend too much money (even though this time the list was pretty small). Since this trip consisted not only of milk and yogurt, but of things such as granola bars, popcorn and cereal I'm hoping my investments will last me a while. Plus I got some new nail polish. I figured I'd treat myself because I jut got my tax returns back :)