1.24

I was so exhausted today that I tried to weasel out of work early, to no avail. It is so wrong that I can basically go home early every day if I wanted. Great for my free time, horrible for my paycheck. I spent the entire day eating halloween cookies, talking to my work buddies, and planning my upcoming travel on Lonely Planet. Best. Job. Ever.

I came home at about 6:30pm, ate a bit of dinner, and tried to take a nap. I tossed and turned for about an hour and a half, changed nap strategies and crashed in my bed instead of my couch, and finally fell asleep at about 8pm. I woke up to complete darkness and my dog dreaming in his bed (so cute, except when it wakes you up). I thought it was the middle of the night and I was kicking myself for missing my run. I flopped over to check the time and it was only 10! YES. Even though I could have just rolled over and slept through the night, I got up, got my scrub-gear on, and went out for my run. I've been nervous about running more than 1 minute at a time as my walk-to-run program has assigned me a (gasp!) whole 3 minutes tomorrow. I know it's idiotic to be nervous about a 3 minute run when I used to run 5k but I feel like a total noob. I took a crack at running 2 minutes straight tonight and didn't even really feel out of breath at the end. I could have easily gone at least another minute. This makes me feel a lot better about my previous visions of keeling over and possibly dying tomorrow. Death averted!

Has anyone else ever been nervous about running such a small distance? I cannot be the only one.

1.1

Despite being ridiculously tired this evening, I had a great run. Also, I realised that my Sunday 5min run/1min walk was a typo. SWEET.

I don't want to jinx myself but after my walk to run program is over, I'm going to start training for a 5k. I'm sort of paranoid about injuries though. When I was boxing I pulled a muscle in my lower back during a training session and it pinched my sciatic nerve which laid me up for nearly a year. Now I'm so worried about something like that happening again. I try to take things slow and read all I can about common beginners injuries and how to prevent them.

I was wondering as well if I should join some kind of running club. Part of me is amazingly embarrassed about my slowness but I was looking up some race times tonight and I realised that I'm pretty solidly middle-of-the-pack time-wise. I don't mind being mediocre in the least. I tried to scam someone into running with me but everyone I know lives too far away or refuses to run on principle.

How can I convince someone to be my running buddy without resorting to extortion, blackmail, or torture?

1.03

As I finished work and walked to my car, I thought about how much I didn't want to run tonight. The biggest reason being I was absolutely exhausted. I was toying with the idea of skipping tonight or just taking the dog for a slow walk when I got a message from one of my friends saying she had posted some pictures from a wedding I attended as a bridesmaid. 

Have you ever seen a picture of yourself where your heart stopped because you had NO idea you really looked like that? I'm not one to hate on my body, I'm all about body confidence, but that's probably because I used to look halfway decent. When did I get a double chin? A HUGE double chin? When did my upper arms start to look like mattress stuffing? I don't think I've ever been this big in my life. It really shocked me. I was a little sad, too. It seems like a monumental task to get in shape. I was feeling a little discouraged and then I thought that, really, I can only take one step at a time. Literally and figuratively. So I took a step out of the door, a step into the road, a step down the street, and before I knew it I had finished my run for today. 

One step at a time.

.26, .29, .32, .69...

So I've had better runs. I was pretty excited for tonight's run/walk and I decided that, since I haven't been running for awhile, I should re-calibrate my Nike+ sensor. I tried it once, running, and it clocked me at 27' mi. I knew that couldn't be right, even on my worst day, and so I tried it again walking. It clocked me in at 24' mi and when it got to its calibration distance (.25 miles) it didn't say anything so I stopped it and tried again, and again, and again. Finally it took the calibration but it had me running at a pace of 30' mi! I'm slow-actually really really slow-but not THAT slow. So I finally deleted the calibration and everything went back to normal. Then I realised that it doesn't count your calibrations into your mileage. So then I had to do ANOTHER mile. I was tired and I'm pretty sure my Dalmatian went to the bathroom in the middle of the street. And not the bathroom that evaporates. I usually carry baggies with me tied onto the end of her leash but of course, they had fallen off somewhere on my route. So I littered AND left surprises for my neighbors. 

Needless to say, it wasn't the best night of my life.

.83

Fell a little short of my goal of 1mi but not by too much. Well, not enough to feel bad about at least. Again, like yesterday, I chose the wrong partner. I have two dogs: one is an 11 year old Australian Shepherd with a trick paw, the other is a 7 year old Dalmatian mix with boundless energy who loves to run. Who do I take with me? My Aussie. Because I'm just that smart. I figured I'm running at night, he's big and mean-looking, clearly very intimidating, I'll take him with me. Every other house (I ran in the subdivision tonight) I had to turn around and make sure he was still behind me. He's pitch black and to spot a black dog at night on a street with no lights is...sort of difficult. The poor guy, he wandered into a ditch at one point and was totally confused about why I kept running away from him and then running back towards him. I think I'll let him live out his golden years napping on his warm rug and taking leisurely strolls in the woods.

The run itself was good. I'm not sure if I can still call it a run. I'm only really running for 1 minute at a time and then walking for 5 minutes. Still I thought that being away from it would make it so hard it would be like when I started and couldn't even run 1 minute without compulsively checking the time. I remember I thought I was running for ages and it was only 10 or 15 seconds. Yikes. I was pleasantly surprised, though, when I ran my one minute and wasn't even breathing hard. That bodes well for the future. We'll see on Sunday when I have to run 5 minutes...

1.03

I logged back into Nike+ and absolutely cringed at how long it's been since my last run. Ages and ages does not cover the dust that has gathered on my running shoes. I did find, however, that they have a new coaching and training section with a walk to run program. Walk to Run? Yeah, I think I can do that. I was supposed to start off with a 15 minute mile walk. I thought it would be nice to ask Dad to come along, seeing as his doctor told him he needs to walk every day. I know he'd never do it by himself. I goaded him into coming with me and regretted it only slightly when I realized that, at our leisurely pace, I wasn't going to walk a mile in 15 minutes. I decided that I'd rather spend some time with Daddo than be spot on with my training. It was a gorgeous dusk-no mosquitoes (amazingly) and a nice cool breeze. 

I probably could have trotted a little bit but my eagerness won't make up for my rustiness. 

Well, I'm back

I didn't always like to run. Actually I'm pretty sure that if you asked me five years ago what I thought about it, I would probably say it was borderline inhuman and most likely covered by the Geneva Convention. I'm not sure how it started or why I suddenly decided to do something I hated, but one day I just started running. I am not exaggerating when I say that I could barely run 30 seconds without feeling like I was going to die. I actually had to work up to a walk/run program I found on the internet. I think I did it mostly out of boredom. The gym was down the street and it seemed that most of the people I knew were athletic. I started off slowly and found that I actually really enjoyed it. By the time I ran my first 5k, I was already on two sports teams and regularly improving my mile time. 

Then I got sick. I noticed that I was sleeping all the time, I was always hungry, and I no longer wanted to do anything that involved effort. As time went on, it got worse; I gained 40lbs, was sleeping up to 14 hours per day and had all but lost contact with most of my friends. I thought I had mono so I went to the doctor. He ran a gamut of tests and they all came back perfectly normal. He suggested it might be depression. How could I be depressed? I wasn't sad, just frustrated at my mystery illness. I took a referral to a behavioral health doctor and, after I described my symptoms to her, she described the symptoms associated with atypical depression-sleeping all the time, eating more than usual, and lack of motivation. She explained to me that atypical depression is depression without the helpless, hopeless, and sad feelings. 

Now, with the help of medication, I am slowly getting my life back, which includes getting back into what I really began to love-running. So here goes!