RUN TODD RUN, Week 32

SATURDAY, 12/4/10
Got out around 9:30pm. Tried to drink lots of water during the day and stay off sweets and the run was relatively painless.

Past couple of days, I've gotten a few, "Hey, are you slimming down?" which I'm guessing is either because of a few weeks of 30+ minute runs. OR the terrible haircut I got.

Ran a weird route, just meandering around the neighborhood, but did 30 minutes that, while hard, felt pretty good once I was done.

MONDAY, 12/6/10
It wouldn't surprise any one to know that I log each day's run as they happen. I'd like to think I could post something late on Friday night as I remember each run, but that is not the case. Even more specifically, I typically blog them as soon as come in from running.

That may not matter much to you, but it's probably good to know that on particularly strong runs, I'm blogging more excitedly than others. Tonight is one of those nights.

As I hit the 40 minute mark, I thought, "Oh my gosh...I'm going to break my record." Ended the run at 45 minutes and could not have been more excited.

It's still hard going, but gosh, it feels great!

WEDNESDAY, 12/8/10
As I walked out of the house Wednesday night, I looked at Kristen:

"How far should I go?"

"49 minutes," she said.

"You're crazy," I replied.

And then I went out and ran 50 minutes. I cannot believe it. At 36 minutes, my legs literally stopped moving for about three seconds, as if in protest. But I told myself all the usual pep talks and pressed on.

Legs were pretty stiff once I got in the house, but I tried to move around a good bit to stretch them out.

FRIDAY, 12/10/10
Since I felt so awesome about my monster run on Wednesday, I figured it was time to bite the bullet, mark out three miles and just start working on that. Get better, get faster, get more comfortable with three miles.

So on Friday afternoon, I marked out three miles around the neighborhood and once the kids were in bed, I went for it.

Let me state for the record that I did, in fact, complete my three miles. But it wasn't pretty.

At around 15 minutes, my legs were in terrible shape. I couldn't understand it. Why was I having so much pain after two times around the route? I kept running, trying to think about what the legs would do later on. I tried to focus on my end goal and how good it would feel to complete it and all that jazz..then it hit me.

Friday morning, I spent two hours on my feet outside ringing a bell with Jonah for the Salvation Army. Then after that, we shopped in the mall and ran a bunch of errands. Coupled with being on my feet for a long time at rehearsal the previous night, I had pushed these big hamhocks as far as they could go.

When all was said and done, I finished three miles just after 34 minutes, which was way slower than I had expected. Felt a little frustrated, but couldn't get too mad since the whole thing is about setting goals and meeting them.