Day 1

July 2, 2011

It's summer in North Carolina which means its HOT and HUMID.  Yuck.  I'm not a big fan of the treadmill, so I'd rather run outside.  And it helps me to see how far I've run in person versus seeing a number on a treadmill.  Therefore, I have 2 options- run really early in the morning, or late at night. I'm weird and hate having to take more than one shower per day.  I voted to go on an early run so I can then take a shower and be on with my day!  And since I'm a teacher, I have the summer off, so my schedule is pretty flexible (which will be nice to get a jump start on this running thing while I have lots of time).

There's a good 2 mile paved trail five minutes from where I live, so Katie said that'd be a good place to start (and it's pretty flat!).  I had all intentions of waking up at 7am, and running by 7:30.  Well.......... the snooze button won me over and I didn't get to the trail until 8:15am.  By this time it was already starting to warm up outside. Once I got finished with my run, I realized it IS worth getting up early to stay cool :)  So next time I'm going win over the snooze button.

I talked to a few people who are runners and they suggested I start out by doing a run with intervals.  That means __ minutes running, then ___ minutes walking.  I had no idea what times to start with, so I opted to do 2 minutes run, 2 minutes walk.  And I was able to do it the whole 2 miles!  Wahoo!  For SOME reason, the 2 minutes running seemed a lot longer than the 2 minutes walking.  What's up with that?! ;)  I actually enjoyed the run and it didn't seem too difficult.  I think part of it was that I had hyped myself up to be excited about it, and of course my music helps!  There was some singing involved - only of course when there was no one around me ;)  I still didn't want to push myself too hard and have my body freak out and wonder what I'm doing to it!  So I kept to my intervals.

The trail I was on is a very popular one in town.  I saw people walking, people biking, people jogging, people running, hardcore people running with their water belts, and those hardcore people again (because they lapped me, one girl lapped me twice! whew!).  Oh, and cute dogs :)  When I was running, I realized that it helps keep me going to see that I'm not the only one running!

A lot of the half marathon training programs suggest you be able to run 3 miles straight, and then start the program.  So my goal by the end of July is going to be able to run those 3 miles.  I think I'm going to slowly increase the minutes I run, and decrease the time I walk.

Run #1 - check!