slacking?

well, the good news is i've been slacking on posting, not on running! though i did opt for tacos and champagne with j* on 2/14 over "30 min jog/walk" and i don't regret it one bit!

following coach james's strong advice to not rely solely on the treadmill for mid-week runs, i decided to try a road run for my 40 min on thursday after work. i've mapped out the distance from my house to one of those big neon neighborhood signs they have in SD (this one says "kensington") -- it's about 3 miles so i figured that would be about right for a jog/walk combo. it got a little dark which i didn't love, but i know soon we'll have longer daylight. i found it really hard to hit my stride, but on the way back i started to feel better and actually just ran for a while instead of doing the 4 min run/1 min walk pattern i had planned to follow. i think it can be hard to establish a good rhythm with the run/walk thing, though i think it's a less stressful approach to this whole thing.

then friday was off, and saturday was group run #3, this one at UCSD. i am still amazed at my ability to get up at 6:15 on saturday mornings! this was 3 mi, and i found a great little pace group of 4 women, one of whom kept time for us. we "graduated" from 3/1 to 5/2 which felt pretty good. once again, it felt better toward the end -- hopefully the amount of time it takes until i start hitting my stride will get shorter and shorter as i get better at this!

i think i've come far enough that i can confidently begin the fundraising part now. not that i doubted my ability to stick with this, but i wanted to make sure the schedule was realistic and that my body would tolerate it as i've had some low back pain and knee discomfort. but so far so good, so watch your mailboxes (real and virtual)...

cheers, j