Let's Get Down to Business (Stacey)

Finish it together everyone! . . . . To defeat! (Huh! Huyah!) The Huuunnnnsssssss!

Mmk, momentary ridiculousness aside, today I decided to start taking myself more seriously and get organized and do this whole running thing right (ish).

If anyone pays attention to this blog aside from Kelsey and myself, you will have noticed that the past few weeks I have been rather slackery about documenting my progress on a regular basis. I intend to improve on that. For whatever reason, this slacking off has also reached the point where I haven't been keeping track of my times and such. I decided that NEEDED to change in order for me to figure out my best times, average pace, running conditions, etc. all of which are helpful to someone with a Type A personality. So I developed a page on OneNote (the uber nerd's Microsoft Word), where I document the days I run, the weather, distance, time, and other miscellaneous notes about my workouts such as which route I take, random conditions to take into account (ie dogs chasing me, my dog slowing me down, whether I take walking breaks or have to stop for some random reason), and whatever other information I feel like documenting. I also have a space for my measurements that I've taken previously and that I'm going to take every 2 weeks or so. 

So that's the plan of action. It's nothing too major, but I think it will help me, and give me some material to work with for blog posts.

Anyway, I ran 3 miles today because I'll be out of town for the next few days and won't be able to work out with any sort of regularity. Although, I may be able to run on some dunes on Thursday, so that will probably take the place of my cross training on Friday and I'll do the run I was supposed to do Thursday then. I'm not sure. We will see how it all turns out.

I switched up my 3 mile route for today due to boredom and the desire to tackle a particular hill that just about killed me on my 5 mile route. 

See the pretty red circle?  (Screenshot from runningmap.com) See that basically vertical line? Yeah, I get to climb, I mean run that thing . . . On my 5 mile route that is my last major obstacle before I get to my final mile. It will be the same for my 6 mile route also. So, rather than fear a stupid land form, I decided to incorporate it into as many of my runs as possible, which is like, all of them.

Yesterday, I tackled it during my 2 mile run, which, running a hill after 1 mile isn't too bad. Today, I ran 2 (poorly paced) miles before I got to the dang thing and nearly gave up about twenty feet from the top. I decided, however, that that would be a stupid decision so I kept "running" anyway.

So for now, the score is basically Hill 2 Me 1 but, so help me, I will be able to sprint up that thing by the end of the summer if I want to.

PS - I had two kids who were playing in their yard wave to me today while I was running past. I felt kinda cool. Plus it made me smile, which is always nice. :)