Just Do It.

P.S. My new shoes are awesome! No more shin splints from running. :-D

Where to Begin?

• Had a conference in DC Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, which involved early mornings, late nights, and commuting in between. Barely time to sleep, much less excercise. I did not eat too many sweets or conference food though, so that's a plus.
  
• Our heat broke last week. Good thing we work too much.
• My computer decided to break last week. Hence the lack of blogging... who am I kidding? I didn't have time to blog anyway. But the Mac is back in business as of today.
• Worked out on Tuesday (3/24). The last time before that was the Tuesday before. It was a decent workout though, 3.5 miles and the ratio of running to walking was excellent considering the lack of excercise lately.
• I find it fascinating that 3.5 miles only constitutes a "decent" workout in my mind now. Two months ago I could barely walk for 2 miles without feeling tired and cranky.
  
• I also was pondering the American culture of laziness yesterday when I had to go down 3 levels, walk "all the way" from the mall, through the underground Metro access tunnel (the equivalent of crossing the street), and then up a level and into another building to get to a bookstore. At first I was like, "Really? That's not worth it..." but then realized that it really isn't that far and chastized myself for being so lazy. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like lots of people would have just gone back to their cars and gone to a bookstore with parking right next to it.
  
• I've decided I like the gym near my house way better than the one at work. Maybe because it's bigger and I don't feel that everyone is staring at everyone else. Plus it's newer, so they have crazy amenities like the cardio cinema and tvs in the (massive) locker room.
  
• My only gripe about the cardio cinema is that you never know when the movie is starting, so if you haven't seen it, it's kind of pointless to start in the middle. Plus, on Tuesday they had the director's commentary playing. Who does that? And especially why would you do that at the gym? The commentary is for people who love a movie so much and have seen it so many times that they need more info to sustain their obsession.
• I need to eat better. Not getting enough vegetables. Also need to get back in the habit of taking vitamins.
• Helen has encouraged me to stay in the half marathon, especially to see what a race is like. So at least one person reads my blog. :)
• I'm going to try for 7 miles tonight. It sounds soooooo long, and if I average 15 minute miles, it could take almost 2 hours. Hopefully I can run a fair amount of it though--I'll just try to run as far as possible in spurts and see what happens. (Yes, the iPod is fully charged!) Plus if I go right at 5 I can probably get a tv treadmill, unless they all have crapped out... Gold's Gym, why do you let them keep breaking and not fixing them?? What's the point in having them if you will let the cable be out all the time??
• Speaking of, someone needs to develop some TV glasses that I can watch while I run the marathon. The kind of thing that I can focus on but then shift my focus when I need to watch the road. Let's get cracking, people.
• I'm flying to New Mexcio on Monday and will be there for a conference until Saturday night. I'm not expecting to work out very much, but I will bring my running gear just in case. It would be really great if I could at least work out a couple of times.
  
• I need to blog more regularly. I really think it will help me stay in the running mindset and keep me pumped.
  

Work, Work, Work!

Wow, I haven't blogged in forever. Work has been extremely busy the past few weeks, which has inhibited both my posting and running... I did have a great workout last night though, 5 miles with about 2 of that running. (When I'm not running consistently, the lungs revert back!) After mile 1 my iPod died, so that sucks. Not sure how I'm going to make it through the marathon, because I'm pretty sure my iPod will die before the end... oh well, deal with that later.

It's kind of disheartening to miss workouts so much. Take tonight for instance—it's 8:26 p.m., and I am at work. I know it sounds crazy, but this is the time of year where there is just not enough time to get everything done between 9 and 5... or 6... Anyway, so it's 8:30 and I'm still at work. I could work out after this, since the gym is in my building, but I am also kind of hungry and need to eat dinner. My options are either go home, eat, go to sleep, or work out, go home, eat, go to sleep. Isn't it easy to see why I might miss a workout?

The crappy part is that it's going to continue this way for the next few weeks. Tonight and tomorrow I'm preparing for a conference that I will be at ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. So the first time I'm going to be able to work out is Sunday, and I'll be exhausted by then. Next week should be OK for working out, but then Monday the 30th I fly out at 7 a.m. to New Mexico, where I'm working ANOTHER conference every day until I get home at 10:30 p.m. Saturday night. I just can't realistically say that I will want to work out at all during that week at the hotel or on the Sunday after I get back. But we'll see. Maybe I can turn into one of those people who needs to run to feel better? Right.

I hate that it has to be this way, but hopefully around mid-April I won't miss so many workouts. It's just that mid-April is dangerously close to mid-May... seems like I will be walking a good bit of the half-marathon. Maybe I should drop out... I don't want to do it and then just feel bad about myself after, especially when the marathon is so far away and I will have plenty of time to train for it. (Work isn't very busy at all in the summer.) Any thoughts? Stay in or drop out???

Ugh

This has been a very long week. I can't believe I haven't worked out at all -- not once. It's too much to explain, but I haven't had a lot of sleep in the past few days, and so I'm faced with this dilemma: go home and rest, despite the fact that I haven't worked out in a week, or work out, even though I feel like I could drop dead any second? My usual self wouldn't even consider this a dilemma, she would just go home. However, it is really bothering me that I haven't had any physical activity (aside from running around a conference center in heels) in an entire week. I mean, how am I supposed to become a dedicated athlete if I'm just ready to give up and go home?

I think that a coach would tell me that I need to rest. Most sports injuries come from overworking your body, and mine is running on fumes at this point...

I WILL RUN TOMORROW!!! MUST RUN!!!

Last Place

OK, I just checked out last year's results for the HH (Historic Half marathon): the last person to cross the finish line came in at 3:58:14. That's around 18.17 minutes per mile. I can definitely do that pace by walking, and probably faster. So at the very least I (hopefully) won't come in dead last, even if I have to walk most of it. The last person in the Marine Corps Marathon last year came in at 7:16:57. That's 16.68 minutes per mile. I could probably walk that right now too.

This is very encouraging... except that the records DON'T show if these people were injured or handicapped or otherwise unfit. I can only hope that they were just slow.

Crappy.

I felt c-r-a-p-p-y today when I was running. I don't know if it is one or a combination of the following:

• I did nothing all weekend, except sleep too much.
• I ate a large (free) lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, including cheesecake.
• I didn't drink enough water today.
• I've got my period.
• It's winter and it snowed a bunch today, therefore my brain just wanted to snuggle in bed.
• I'm wearing Andy's socks.

Regardless of the cause, it is somewhat heartening to know that a "crappy workout" is running/walking 2 miles.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should even worry about the half-marathon. I'm feeling pressure to do more, but I also know that I need to ease into it to avoid injury. I just don't think that at the rate I'm going, I'll be able to do the h-m, and I don't know if you are allowed to walk the whole thing or what. I would feel really stupid coming in hours after everyone else... plus I can't just NOT do it because I already registered and paid. :-p