Demoralizing

So there you are running along. You are approaching the end of your first mile. Here comes one of the most beastly hills on your path. It is still at least 85* and quite humid at 7pm. Sweat is pouring down your face making your eyes sting. So you start up the hill. You WILL beat this hill. No walking! When a little voice from the stroller you are pushing says: "I wanna go fast mommy!" Not, I wanna go fastER, put he just plain thinks we ought to get to FAST. Kids.
But I did 3 miles today! In addition to the 2 miles I walked yesterday I'm already up to 5 miles! Tomorrow is a well deserved day off.

One week down

Well, I did it, I made it through my first week as a runner. I logged 9.5 miles this week of running or walking. At this rate, it would take me a week and a half to run a half marathon. :)
I think I can keep going next week. I'm still a little motivated. Next week I want to run in the double digits. I've decided that even though I am slow and I need to walk, that I can call myself a runner because when I want to stop, I keep on going; when I feel like I cannot go any farther, I push myself to do it anyway.

Getting a little more sore

We ran again last night. It was ok. I didn't feel as good after this run as I did the night before. I think that is because we ran a longer hill than is here in my neighborhood. Also, the kids were with us, and Nate isn't so fond of this. He wanted to go and play at the park more than he wanted to ride in the stroller. Also, he thinks that he should be able to run as well, so he never really wants to run. We did ok though. I think that today will just be a walk, and then on Saturday we will try a longer run. We'll see how I'm feeling. I hope that it only takes another week or so for my body to get used to this and stop being so sore all of the time. In the morning I can hardly walk down the stairs. A bit scary when you think that I am carrying Graham, and well, we all know how good I am at going down stairs...

I did it!

Well, last night was a running night. Jesse had a thing at work, so he was not able to leave until 6, which meant that we could not go running together since there was no way that Graham was going to be able to stay awake until 7:30. So Jesse sent me running by myself. So I thought that I wanted to see if I could jog an entire mile. There is a loop that my house is on that is .9 mile. So I set out, and I did it! And not only did I jog the entire loop without walking, I went for a second loop. I had no intention of jogging the entire second loop, but when I got to the hill where I thought I was going to walk, I thought, you know, I could run a little bit more, it's not like I'm on my death bed. And then when I got to the top I was about at the end, but then it was down hill, and it's easy to run when you're going down hill, so I kept on running, and then I was practically home, so I just pushed a little further. So I ran about 2 miles last night without stopping or walking. I was so proud of myself. And it only took me like 20 min. I don't know for sure how long it took because I forgot to time myself, but all the same, not too bad considering I don't think I have run 2 continuous miles in the past 8 years. Of course last night it was about 15 degrees cooler than it was on Monday night, and than it will be for the next month. That helped A LOT! So we'll see there could just be a runner in my after all.
Today my biggest complaint is that my back hurts, but I think I'm going to have to deal with that for a while longer. I have a lot of extra weight that I am carting around and that strains a back. I'll have to sit in the massage chair every day for a bit.
Also, for those of you runners, or ex-runners or wanna be runners, or people who just like to read a motivational sports story, the thing that gave me the desire to push through and run the whole way was reading the book, Ultra Marathon Man by Dean Karnazes. It's a pretty good book, and you should check it out. It really makes you think about the limits of your body and perhaps that you are being a little bit wimpy.

An Altercation

Ok, so today I did something I am ashamed of. I lost my temper with a child who vandalized my satellite dish. He was just a kid, maybe 5 or so, but I yelled at him, asking him who his parents were, and that they were going to have to pay for it, other things that I should not have put on a 5 year old. As it turned out the mother was near by. So she started yelling at me for yelling at her kid, and we went back and forth for a while, and pretty much I came away feeling awful, but all pumped up at the same time.
The problem was that this kid had like, hung on the arm of our dish, and had broken it, so the whole thing is going to have to be replaced, and I was thinking of what that was going to cost me. So I went in and called the police so that I could file a report. I didn't even know who this girl was. But she had been talking to my neighbors behind me, so I talked to them, and apologized for being such an obnoxious brat in public, and they were talking to me about how she is a bit of a bad parent, and on and on, and how I didn't need to apologize to them.
The thing is that my friends were here for quilting, so Colleen got in her car and followed her home, so that we could find out where she lived, and then I got more info from my neighbors. Then when I was out there taking a picture she came back and we had a civilized conversation where I apologized profusely for the completely inappropriate way in which I had acted. Anyway, it kind of ended better, but I had already called the police, so yeah. They came, and took a report. This way in case I needed to take an action later on, it would be ok.
Of course, the moron that I am, we don't have renter's insurance. It has always been on my to-do list, but never got done. You can be assured that tomorrow I'll be on the phone with State Farm. I called Dish, and they were going to send someone out, and it was going to cost me upwards of $300. And $99 of that was just for the visit. So I called these other people, who Dish contracts out to anyway, and had come out to fix our reception a few other times, and they were going to do the whole thing, visit and equipment, for $100. Plus, they were going to be here earlier.
Anyway, it's the first time I've ever done that, and I feel bad about it, and totally embarrassed. On the other hand, it made for quite an exciting quilting night. Jesse is at a movie today, so he's going to be excited when he gets home and sees that. I sent him a pic message. THe movie should be getting out any minute now...

Running for Non-Runners

Ok, so at BYU, there is this class called Swimming for Non-Swimmers. I always thought it was a bit of a humorous title for a class, but none the less, knew that I belonged in that class. I never did take it though. I think of it though as I start the next goal in my life, and that is to finally do something about all of the weight that I have gained. Jesse and I are finally putting good use to the jogging stroller; we are going to start running together.
When I graduated from college some 6 years ago I was a nice size 7. It was great. I really enjoyed looking at my flat stomach in the mirror, and well, I was happy about my body. 5 years of marriage and 2 babies later, I am tipping the scales at a tidy size 14. Yikes! How did I ever let it get this bad? (Well, the answer to that is that I am a world champion at being lazy.) I always think, I need to start a diet and start exercising. I even joined the YMCA for a while a few years ago. But money gets tight and so a family gym membership is not in the budget this year, so what is a mother of 2 supposed to do? Graham is still quite needy and has not mastered the art of self entertainment for more than a few minutes at a time. I got the jogging stroller, but then Graham started waking up early and taking an early nap, and Nate started waking up late. So these days Nate is just waking up when Graham is ready for his nap. I know, all weak excuses.
But then Jesse and I decided that we were going to run together when he gets home from work. It is by far not an ideal situation, but it's just about our only option.
The only problem is that I am what I would call a non-runner. It's not that I have never been a runner before, but I don't know that even when I was a "runner," I was actually a "runner." I ran cross country and track in High School, and that was ok. I wasn't really any good at it. Then when I was a freshman in college I had a great roommate who was always up for a run. Mary and I would go running regularly at 11pm or later. But then by Sophomore year we only got together a few times to run, even though we only lived 3 doors apart. And then I just kind of stopped running. I was still active, I would walk to and from campus a few times a day, and stuff like that, but that was the end of my running career.
Then I had Nate and well, running was just not an option for me, my body had forgotten it, and rebelled. I was officially a non-runner. When we joined the Y, I did the bike and the elliptical, not the treadmill. And that brings us to today.
So today was day 1. I was supposed to have quilting tonight, but it got moved to tomorrow night, so we moved our first day up to today from Wednesday. I was a little worried. I told Jesse that he had to run with me, no matter how many times I needed to stop and walk. On my previous attempts I came nowhere close to running a mile. I walked most of the way. Today, however, was different. I had found what I lacked before, a running partner. Just having someone there to witness me being a wimp was enough to motivate me. Today went much better than I had anticipated. We kept a slow easy pace, and I was able to run for much longer and farther than I had ever done before. We did well enough that Jesse talked about signing up for the half marathon this fall. The initial goal is to be in good enough shape to run the Baltimore half marathon next October. Maybe if thing go really well to run the marathon. I mean, what better way is there to get into shape than by training for a marathon? So I don't know about this year, I guess we'll have to see how long it is before I can do a mile without stopping.
So here I am, thrown into a sport I used to semi-enjoy, because let's face it, the only reason I did CC and Track was because it was a family tradition, and no one got cut from the team. We'll see where this takes me. Perhaps it will be easier than I think, and I'll be able to run a half marathon in 3 months. Crazier things have happened. At the very least, I can hope to get into a healthier lifestyle, and maybe lose a few pounds.

Correction

It was the neighbors behind us that called the police about our door being open. I talked to him today and he told me how his wife was very concerned about our door being open. Well, how nice of them. I never said they weren't nice people.