Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl...

It was a little lighter when I got up this morning. Amazing what a difference that made. I'm becoming indifferent to the stabbing pain in the back of my leg and my knees. My stomach's now going haywire. Sighhhh... It's always something. But! Generally, today's run was pretty good.

Distance: 3 miles.

Sore.

My legs hurt. My ankles hurt. My back hurts. My arms hurt.

My run was really good today, but I'm cranky.

At least I don't have to run tomorrow. Geez, it's only week two.

Distance: 3 miles.

Focus

I'm under the general opinion that Lance Armstrong is a jerk, but I like this and needed it tonight on the treadmill as I was trying to recover from 6 miles. How quickly it goes away.

"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever." ~ Lance Armstrong

Distance: 3 miles.

One long run down...17 to go.

Six miles today went a little easier than I'd expected. My knee started hurting a bit one mile in, but that went away. I was enthralled with HGTV during my run. Having the TV definitely helped...they make some pretty ugly crap on that station. I'm pretty sure that if I had a hot glue gun and some random junk, I could glue it to pieces of furniture and call it "stylish" too. Oh well.

One drawback of running at work is looking totally horrible in front of co-workers... Yeah, not pretty. And then there's the whole singing on the treadmill thing. I may have been doing that a little louder than intended. Hee hee.

Music... Oh how I heart Panic! At the Disco. Trying to pick between Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks and Camisado for favorite running song of the day...

Knees are still achy. Argh.

Distance: 6 miles.

Optimum gym schedule (at least this week)

Sunday: Weights
Monday: Run after work
Tuesday: Run after work (and weights)
Wednesday: Volleyball / Rest
Thursday: Run in the AM (and weights)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Long Run

On a side note: OMG. It's hot. If the guy doesn't fix my A/C today, I'm going to resort to bags of ice. Or just going to a lot of movies or something. I took a shower, but I'm pretty much just as sweaty now as I was beforehand. Bleh. Not sure how running 18 miles randomly on a Saturday is going to play out in the heat.

Distance: 3.25 miles.

Summer skin

Tonight the treadmill was good to me. The mirror in front of the treadmill was not. Bad, bad, bad idea and bad day to wear shorts. Whose brilliant idea is the whole mirror at the gym anyway?

"Hey, I bet people will like to see themselves all hot and sweaty. It will be motivating."

Yeah, and it was. Seeing myself jiggle for 30 minutes definitely made me feel like I needed to work out more. Good God. Let's just pretend I never saw that. Maybe I needed the reality check though. Maybe.

Distance: 3 miles.

Shorter than expected

Okay, so I didn't time my break very well. I checked out my schedule and apparently training starts this week. Or next. I don't know. Either way I'm ahead of Ade, since she's on her cruise and all that. And isn't that all that really matters? :)

Random running fact of the day: The lotion I slather on daily has little sparkles in it, thus my sweat has sparkles in it. I flung some on the treadmill by accident today (I cleaned it off immediately after, don't worry) and noticed the insane amount of glitter in it. It was like I was some sweaty fairy princess.

Distance: 3.5 miles.

Not an addict...

I snuck to the gym today after church because the mall wasn't open yet. I only ran for 5 minutes. Then I got bored. That's probably a bad sign. I should be pumped and wanting to run right about now. Instead I'm content taking a nap. More rest couldn't hurt. I'll blame it on my late night on Friday. Yeaaah... That's the ticket!

If not now, when?

I've decided to take a week off from running to let my muscles (and everything else) rest a bit. After my total crash on Wednesday, I figure I'm due. We'll see how long that lasts though. Today is my second day of not running and I'm already going nuts.

Guilty pleasures

LET'S GO (Trick Daddy)

I'm not gonna lie, getting up at 5 am sucks! My bed was really calling my name this morning. And there was a little voice in the back of my head telling me that I deserved more sleep. Which I probably do. But it's all about pushing yourself to the limit, right? And my body rose to the occasion, yet again. Tomorrow I get to sleep in. Yaaaay. 6:30.

I'll keep running

Because it lets me be selfish
Its the thing I do that's just for me,
and nobody else.
FYI, I never thought this being-selfish-thing
could take so much discipline.

[PS - It's always best to follow up a less than spectacular workout with the four D's: dinner, dessert, drinks, and dancing.]

Is it wrong that this makes me emotional?

I had a great title for this post...

While I was on the treadmill, but then I lost it. Maybe it will come back... Getting up was hard again this morning, but the three miles wasn't bad. Except for the toe issues I was having. Some weird reaction to the sand from the volleyball court last night, I'm guessing. Who knew. The best part about running at work is that, if I doddle around enough on the weight machines, I get to see my boss as he's coming in at 6:30. And that's not at all uncomfortable.

CatharticMusicChoiceOfTheMorning = FallOutBoy.OfAllTheGinJointsInAllTheWorld;

Yeah, so work's a little overwhelming right now.

Tough decisions

Getting up this morning was a battle. When it came down to it though, the fate of my day depended on the choice to get out of bed or curl back up and go to sleep. Though it sucked to get up at the time, I'm glad I did. Maybe that's why I like running. Because it's pretty concrete. Given the choice between running and not running, running is almost always the correct answer. Unless I'm on fire or cripple or something. Then there might be better options.

I'm still waiting...

Saturday's long run went about as good as could be expected. And by that I mean bad. The end was particularly traumatic. I had to break out "Right Now" in an attempt to get my head back in the game. Hopefully I'll get the fire back at some point. I found this in Health magazine and thought it was particularly timely.

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Whoever said "patience is a virtue" must have been a runner. No matter how long you've been pounding the pavement, you can count on having the occasional tough workout. Jenny Hadfield [running goddess] has simple advice for the frustrated [this is the good part]: Be satisfied running at your own pace, on your own schedule. Remind yourself that it won't always be unpleasant, and that the challenging days will make you stronger. Just shorten your workout or slow your pace, then look forward to a fresh start the next time you lace up. And be patient with your body; it'll reward you by ultimately going the distance.

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So true, Jenny. So true.