life goal #005: run a marathon

la marathon training: week #1

2009-11-29T23:48:00.013-05:00

weekly run #1: monday 11/23/09 - 3 miles

weekly run #2: thursday 11/26/09 - 3 miles

my ipod decided to fight with my nike+ for this run and not work. i promise i ran the 3 miles. trust me ;)

weekly run #3: friday 11/27/09 - 3 miles

long run #1: sunday 11/29/09 - 6 miles

another week closer

2008-05-17T15:53:00.001-04:00

5.13.08

3 miles (no walking can be a given for all short runs) + workout

5.14.08

i was SUPPOSED to run 3 miles on this day, but an upset stomach prevented that! i would be 3 miles behind in my training, but because of the 1.22 extra i ran on last week's long run i am only 1.78 miles behind. (haha) now i just need to figure out where i'm going to squeeze in that extra distance!

5.15.08

3 miles + workout

5.17.08

7 miles (only walking twice for a total of about 30 seconds! wowzers!!)

hello world.

2008-05-12T20:14:00.005-04:00

long time no see!

so do you all remember when i said i could feel something new and exciting on the horizon? we'll i could have never guessed how new and exciting it would truly be! no, i'm not getting married and not i am not pregnant. (it's much bigger than that!) however, you all will just have to sit tight until i announce what it is. i hope it's worth the wait!

and just so you know, i am not bringing up the fact that there is new and exciting news to drive you all nuts.. it's my excuse for being so busy lately! i'm not going to have the time to blog like i use to, but i will post once a week to keep whoever is interesting in what i have to say up to date on my training!

5.6.08

3 miles (no walking.. a FIRST for me!!!) + workout

5.7.08

3 miles (no walking) + workout

5.8.08

3 miles (no walking) + workout

5.10.08

ok.. this run deserves a backstory.

aj and i are running 4 days a week on our training.. tuesday, wednesday and thursdays during the week, then a long run on saturday. the first long run on our first saturday of the new training program was 6 miles. neither of us have ran that far since we've started training and we were very excited and nervous all week long. or at least i was. for me, i was so excited to finish the run and hear the man in my ipod say, "congratulations, you have completed 6 miles. this is your new distance record."

well, with that said, saturday morning rolls around and aj and i drove to a bike/jogging path here in town. we park, get ourselves situated and take off. aj quickly disappears ahead of me (i am REALLY slow) and i start zoning out and get into the grove of my run. one crappy song comes on after another and i decided i needed to skip songs until i got to a good one. i hit the buttons on my armband and once i found a good one i wanted to know how far i'd gone so far and continued to hit random buttons. (i couldn't remember which button did what!) then, before i knew it, the man in my ipod said, "workout ended." i screamed a few profanities and got so upset i almost threw in the towel. the man in my ipod said i had run 2.75 miles so i decided i'd just punch in a 3.25 mile run and be on my way.

yeah, good idea until i realized i wouldn't know for sure where the halfway point was. you see, the trail we were running on goes clear into the next town, then attaches to a few other paths that extend all throughout southwest ohio. our plan was to run until we were alerted we had reached our half way point, then run back to the car. i figured sooner or later aj would be running back towards me and i could let him know what happened and he might be able to tell me where to turn around.

another mile passes and aj is finally in my sight. i yell to him as we pass that my ipod got screwed up and he told me to turn around at the gate. yes! a solid point to turn around! i was so relieved, but then i look down the straight path to see no gate. i saw two bridges and just assumed that was what he meant. but what if it wasn't? i was so confused and frustrated that i continued on to the furthest bridge then turned around there.

then man in my ipod started counting down the meters until i was finished. i knew he was wrong. i knew i had much further to run. "3.25 miles completed," he said. i kept running. "4 miles completed." still i kept running. then i saw aj coming back towards me again. he got by my said and started running with me. run to the road, thats the end! i kept pushing, but finally i gave out, just meters from where "the end" was.

apparently aj had been done for about 20 minutes and started to worry about me. "when did you turn around?" he asked. i told him i kept running until the second bridge and he told me i should have just turned around when we passed. good to know now! i didn't care. i just hoped i had gone the 6 miles or else i knew i'd be really upset.

we added the distance from the two runs and found i had met the required amount of milage for that day. and some. i had ran almost 7.25 miles! wowzers! i had never ran over 4 miles, and here i am running well over 7 miles and only walking less than a minute of that! (just when i had to stop for traffic and the other time i just thought i was going to die.)

so, here are the TWO graphs from that saturday. i promise i wont be such a dumb ass next time and will do the whole thing in one shot!

i suck at life.

2008-04-02T13:17:00.002-04:00

ok, let's just get one thing out in the open before we begin:

i suck at life.

alright, now that that is off my chest lets talk about running..

i was getting my butt out there in the antarctic mornings of january and february, but now that the weather is not so frigid.. there i lay in bed at 6 am! what the hell is wrong with me? now don't get me wrong.. i have not completely stopped running, but i have not been getting my four runs in a week and i sure have seemed to give up on my career of a potential published author. (sorry aj.)

i guess sometimes we find ourselves in a rut. sometimes we get overloaded at work and in our personal lives. sometimes the weather is just a downer. well, all of that is about to change. i can feel something coming. there is something new and exciting on the horizon and i am relieved. it is gradually getting nicer outside, i'm finally catching up with life and the rut is losing it's hold.

so this time when i say keep your eye out for some new stuff i mean it! i might not blog every single day, but you can bet i will be out there pounding the pavement or in the gym getting toned. i am going to get in shape for summer, and then stay that way for good. i am going to stay on top of my business and personal responsibilities. i will keep the apartment clean. i will get our companies up and running. i will find more time for my friends and family. i will be a better person. i will run.

here are some past runs from when i was able to pry myself out of bed:

ice ice baby

2008-02-28T15:22:00.000-05:00

so i haven't run since february 17. that's about to close in on 2 weeks without a single run.. and i am going nuts!

it's one thing to not be able to run, but it's whole other thing when the majority of that time not running is spent pretty much locked up in doors. the weather in ohio has been dreadful the past few weeks and has made running outside impossible. well, unless you strap on some ice skates in place of your nikes, then you might have a chance.

and i promise this is no exaggeration.

for a week solid neither snow nor rain fell from the sky, instead it was straight up ice. i felt like the whole damn city had been placed in the little nook in front of a refrigerator for ice to spill out on us. the roads, the trees, the telephone wires.. all covered in a thick, icy glaze. they tried burying the city in salt, but it didn't help. the ice just kept falling from the sky.

the past few days the weather had finally decided to let up, but the snow and frigid temperatures remained. today has been looking up and all the wind has died down allowing a sunny 22º day not feel too shabby. my fingers are crossed that the sun will melt the snow on the sidewalks and a run or two might be in my forecast this weekend. (cheesy joke, i am aware.)

aside from the weather, a few important dates are coming up.. the first being my birthday on march 10th. i'm turning the big two-five. oh joy. a quarter of a century old. how exciting. at least it's a leap year and i get to live one extra day in 24-year-old-land. after that on the 15th is our first race! it's a little 5k race for leukemia and we are very excited to be official for once. (no, the man in my ipod does not count as being official.) aj and i will be running solo, even though our boss signed up for it. she is going to have to sit this one out for a knee surgery on the 4th. apparently her knee cap was in the witness protection program and it relocated itself over a year ago. after months and months of searching she found the little sneak and is going to put him back where he belongs.

ok, that's all i've got for now. i'm not going to write about my last two runs (from 2/16 and 2/17) because they were eons ago but i will still put up the results as proof that i did run!!

oh, and keep your fingers crossed for me for this weekend. i need to run.

attention!

2008-02-19T18:42:00.009-05:00

i have been mia for a week. yes, a week. i know i am a terrible, terrible person but i promise to make it up to you. ("you" mostly meaning kylie.)

halmark had to go and throw a fake holiday in my running mix, along with me getting sick and ice falling from the sky. not a good combo. none the less, i have been running despite the rumors that have flooded tmz, in-touch and best week ever.

so keep your peepers peeping. i will soon have a juicy new blog full of pushing wind with my face, growing rocks in place of my calves and the latest mad cow outbreak to hit ohio.

see you soon..

the 5k that wanted to be a 10k

2008-02-12T16:25:00.002-05:00

since the weather has been so incredibly miserable, aj and i have been really into running 5k's lately. they are quick and fun runs that end even sooner if you move your butt along at a faster pace. (good motivation to get out of the cold!)

we got home from work yesterday knowing the snow was going to come soon. the sun was setting and the temperature was dropping fast. i was really trying to talk aj into not running, but thank god he was pumped up about the run and made me suck it up. that's a great thing about our running dynamic.. usually if one doesn't want to run the other does and pushes to make it happen. just imagine if we were able to talk each other out of it. we'd both still be wearing our fat jeans.

after what i felt was an ample amount of complaining, i got dressed and we headed out our door and down the steps to the front of our building. aj being the goof ball he always is, thought it'd be fun to swing around like a monkey on the banisters. i made fun of him and quickly made my way out the door because i wanted to get this run over with. as soon as the cold air hit my face i heard aj yip like a little wounded puppy. i turned around to see what had happened, and he actually managed--through gloves-- to get the world's largest splinter. seriously folks, this sucker was like a full-grown redwood sticking out of his poor throbbing finger. he took the glove off his wounded hand, and with the glove still on the other hand, tried to pull it out. not wanting to make too much fun of him since he was having a mini crisis, i only laughed as i suggested to take the other big, clumsy glove off. in our state of emergency it didn't register that he could take the other glove off and i just cried for him to pull it out with his teeth! crisis averted.

sliding his glove back on, and giving that darn banister a dirty look, we were ready for our 5k. we hit the center buttons on our ipods to start the workout and parted ways. i had on a double layer of pants, double layer of shirts under my hoodie, gloves, scarves.. the works. but it was still cold. i knew if i just kept pushing i'd warm up eventually and enjoy the chilly evening run.

i flew past my 1 and 2k points, and waited to hear that i was halfway through, but the man in my ipod never alerted me. knowing very well i was more than past the halfway mark i turned around and ran my route backwards. this was the first time i had ever done that, and let me tell you.. it felt very strange. it was as if i were in the twilight zone and everything seemed familiar but was very different. i started to feel dizzy. i wondered if i was freaking out or maybe i just wasn't getting enough oxygen into my lungs. i stopped to focus on my breathing but it was really difficult. i couldn't get the breath deep into my lungs. the air kept hitting a painful wall. i brought my gloved hands and scarf up to my face and started breathing through them to warm the air. finally that seemed to work as my lungs miraculously opened and the air was flowing through me like never before. i was completely refreshed and ready to kick some 5k ass.

as i passed different streets, random people and even aj a time or two i realized i was in a groove. nothing on me really seemed to hurt more than usual and i was breathing right on beat. it was almost as if my body were on auto-pilot. i couldn't believe it! finally i felt like i was really figuring out a lot about how i need to run and how i was going to be able to cross that finish line at the usaf marathon in september.

while having this mini celebration in my head, i quickly came back to the real world and was starting to wonder why the man in my ipod wasn't counting down the final meters. i had passed the 4k mark a while back. yet he was silent. right about that time his voice kicked in and to my surprise he said, "halfway point. 5k completed." what? halfway? 5k done? i was so incredibly confused. then it clicked. i must have set my ipod for a 10k. damn it! i rushed to hit the pause workout button and quickly pulled my arm out from my hoodie to expose the ipod strapped to my arm. i was more than excited to see that i had cut off an entire minute from my last 5k, but was bummed that it was being labeled as a 10k run.

oh well, i know it was intended to be a 5k. it being labeled incorrectly on my ipod or on my nike+ account does not change the fact i ran it faster than ever before, or that i only walked twice. i did great and i know i will only continue to improve.

5k on the brain

2008-02-09T17:43:00.001-05:00

deciding i needed to give my poor defenseless shins a rest, and wanting to break away from the monotony of starting my blogs with olie whining at 5 am, aj and i decided to take friday morning off. we thought it would be more beneficial to cross-train that evening and save our last two runs of the week for saturday and sunday.

cross-training has been both enjoyable and entertaining the past few days. to our amusement we have been inadvertently working out with this kid named andrew. my guess is that andrew is in the seventh grade, about 4'9" and sitting pretty at 85 pounds. to paint you an even more vivid picture he looks like he'd be the default kid casted as "boy number 2" in a diary of anne frank remake. i'm sure this poor kid gets made fun of enough at school, so i really do not plan on jumping on the bandwagon, but he is quite interesting to watch.

yesterday andrew came into the workout room with another pubescent and equally awkward kid. apparently andrew had been raving about the 60 pounds he could now curl and wanted to show off to said pal. you see, normally i am the person who roots for the underdog. normally i would take one look at andrew and applaud him for all of his efforts. you can tell that inside his tiny frame he is just dying to be like some of the boys at his school that are starting to fill-out and come into their manhood. poor andrew is far from filling anything out.. except maybe a scantron test in seventh grade social studies. i'm sure he'd excel at that.

but anyway, i am digressing from digression. i really have no moral of the story with andrew. he is fun to watch when he makes fish-faces while doing lateral pull-downs and i just thought he deserved a cameo in here somewhere. (i'm hoping he'll become a regular.)

today aj and i slept in. we woke up to the sun shinning in though our window and the wind crashing into the side of our building. i took olie outside to see that it was a beautiful and sunny 46˚ day with some frightening 37 mph gusting winds. we got all wrapped up to protect ourselves from the wind and set out for a 5k run. my shins where doing pretty good, even though there was some pain on impact here and there when i started. as i continued on, the pain got a little more intense and breathing became an issue as well.

over a year ago i was having a lot of chest pains and breathing problems. i went to the doctor and she told me that she did not want to declare me asthmatic, but that i did breath like someone with asthma. she put me on medication and the problem started to go away. feeling like i didn't want to be on medication forever i chose to stop inhaling steroids and the breathing problems never returned. i don't think that i have any kind of breathing problem and i know i don't have asthma. i think that my lungs just aren't as strong as they could be, and through all of this training i feel like they are getting stronger everyday. the natural way.

with that in mind while i was running, i knew i was not going to have an asthma attack or keel over from lack of oxygen into my lungs so i kept pushing. i realized early on that it is just more difficult to breath when the wind is smacking you in the face at over 30 miles per hour. i really tried to focus on a rhythm to my breathing and it seemed to help. in addition to the pain in my shins and the difficulty breathing, the mucus in my face was going nuts! i always try to throw a napkin or two in my hoodie pocket before a run and luckily today was one of the days i remembered it! every time i slowed down to catch my breath i blew my nose and spit out the incredibly thick funk in my mouth. nice imagery, i know, but it's what helped me keep going.

i altered my route today so that i did not have to run the cal de sac with the hill, and i tried to not run directly into the wind too much either. running into the wind is pretty much like trying to swim in chocolate pudding. it might feel a little refreshing, but you get nowhere.

as the man in my ipod starting counting down the kilometers i tried to not walk too much, despite the fact a kilometer means nothing to me. as i closed in on 800 meters left i got a sudden burst of energy. i had just passed aj a block back and i had really expected him to finish his 5k hours before me. i had to keep running. making a turn around a small cal de sac and into the wind, i knew my final stretch was going to be a struggle. i passed a kid on a bike who looked like he'd never seen a person run for fun before in his life, but luckily he knew some runner/biker sidewalk etiquette and gracefully peddled in the grass giving me ample room to pass. at that moment the man in my ipod congratulated me on completing my goal of running 5k and i abruptly cut him off by ending the workout. i generally leave my ipod on during my walking cool-down just to have the added milage, but this time i was very focused on short run time and a quick average pace.

i headed back to the apartment and saw aj still standing outside. i waved my arms at him from a distance and he started heading towards me. seeing that he was not huffing and puffing like i was i knew he had finished before me but the fact he was still outside made me feel great. maybe i had actually finished with a pretty good time. we walked over to the sauna and shared our experience with the 5k and our results. aj had finished in 31 minutes, cutting 40 seconds off of his last 5k! i, amazingly, only finished about 4 minutes behind aj at 35 minutes! i couldn't believe it.

while i didn't run the entire thing, i am very confident that i will be able to run the entire 5k we just signed up for on march 15!!! (yes, that was worthy of three exclamation points!) this will be our first official race and we are very excited! we are going to continue to run four times per week and cross-train as often as we can find time for. come race day we are going to be fit and ready!

something to write home about

2008-02-07T12:20:00.001-05:00

this morning i awoke to the sound of, you guessed it, olie and his whining. i scanned the floor for my alarm clock but it wasn't where i usually keep it. i pulled myself up as far as i could in my state of confusion and located it on the floor on the far side of my night stand. as i strained to read it's display through the blurriness of just waking up it read: BOS. bos? what kind of time is bos? i stared at it a bit longer thinking the letters would magically turn into numbers but they didn't. instead i came out of my delirium and realized the clock was sitting upside down. i remembered grabbing it off of the night stand after i had accidently fallen asleep at 10 pm, set it for 5:30 am, then carelessly tossed it in the general direction of where it usually sits. it all made sense. it was 5:08 and that also made sense since olie was crying. like clockwork, if he's not in bed with us, he bitches at 5 am. you'd think we owned a rooster.

i got up to get the little cock (pun intended) out of his cage and put him back in bed with us. we all dozed off for about 20 minutes until the delightful sound of the alarm clock was disintegrating my ears. i thought about moving it ahead to 6 am so i could get some more z's, but remembered how excited i was last night for this morning's run. plus, i didn't want to hear the damn thing go off again. i told aj it was time to run, flipped on the lights and left the room. as i was getting dressed aj took the little cry baby outside and came back in with bad news. it was cold out. aj wasn't so pumped to run yet another cold and windy morning, but he continued along with our routine as usual. i grabbed a scarf and wrapped it around my head as if it were snowing klondike bars outside. i knew i'd warm up early in the run, but i also knew i complain a lot (inside my head) if i didn't have extra protection against the cold and wind.

we got outside a little before 6 am and i was more than pumped. keep in mind, i hadn't run since the hurricane of '08 hit beavercreek, ohio two days prior. in that storm i had run over 10 consecutive minutes before i got washed away with the flood and i was determined to do the same today. now that i run the same route each day i know (within feet) where certain minute marks are. (ie. 5 minute mark, 10 minute mark.) before i knew it i was blazing by 5 minutes. then i hit 10 minutes. i couldn't believe how easy it came. i decided i could start walking once the man in my ipod told me i had reached a mile, so i kept going. still in running-mode i approached a cal de sac. not the cute little five house wooded cal de sac that i like, that one is in my five minute mark. no, this was the big daddy hill cal de sac. the one that i had just mastered. i knew that i'd reach my one mile on this cal de sac so i just kept going. when the man in my ipod gave me the go i could walk again and the cal de sac wouldn't be so bad. as i reached the top of the cal de sac the man in my ipod still hadn't alerted me of my first mile. had i not gone as far as i had thought? did i make the man in my ipod mad and now he's not talking to me? i felt like i had almost ran another five minutes since the last time he had spoken to me. it was with that thought that i remembered he only tells me how i'm doing at five minute intervals. "fifteen-minutes completed," he told me. wow. i couldn't believe i had not walked a step of it yet.

i usually begin walking when i feel as though i'm not getting enough oxygen into my lungs. going at a slower pace for about a minute helps me catch my breath and then i can continue on my merry way. well, i had ran through all of that and found myself breathing very steadily and deeply. i realized it was never anything i needed to walk over, it was just something i needed to push through.

"halfway through; only 17.5 minutes remaining." all this time and i still was running. well, if you want to call it that. i was definitely going through the motions, but probably would have gotten run over if the mall walkers accidently wondered out of the mall and onto this road. that may sound far fetched, but i could see the mall from where i was. good thing they don't open the doors until i'm long gone and at work. blogging.

with my shins starting to hurt at this point i decided i should start walking. but when? i am way anal about things and like to use round numbers, make things even and always follow some type of order. (and no, i do not have ocd.) i chose to start walking once i had made one entire lap around the pseudo track i made out of my neighborhood. when i reached my landmark i hit the center button on my ipod to see how i had done so far. believe it or not i had ran 1.8 miles at an average of 11'2"/mile. amazing. i never would have guessed i'd be doing so well only a week and a half into our training. (especially considering my track record with running. yikes.)

as i took my first walking step i realized my shins were really bothering me. i tried altering my form a bit to see if i could get little stretches in without stopping. i succeeded with this a little and then tried running more. no luck. still hurt! i walked a little further, and from a distance i set a landmark where i'd start running again. as i approached the landmark (aka some family's driveway) i started running again, but this time with a little less discomfort. i realized the pain had faded enough with my brief walk that i could run the rest of it. and i did.

while the man in my ipod started counting down the minutes i had left, i rerouted myself to end my run closer to my apartment. with only two minutes remaining i ran on a small stretch of sidewalk that takes you away from my apartment, out to a main road with the intention of turning back at the one minute mark. when alerted, i turned around and couldn't believe i had almost ran for 35 consecutive minutes. the joy must have really thrown me off because i didn't see the two inch bump in the sidewalk ahead. you see, the entrance to our complex is a very cute, winding street that passes a few mallard-filled ponds and is lined with trees.. and, as trees grow, their roots often times push sidewalks up, right in front of unsuspecting runners who are off in their own dreamworld. all of a sudden i kicked what felt like the berlin wall (pre david hasselhoff performance) and everything went into slow-motion.

the music dancing from my ipod faded out into the distance, my hands swung out in front of me preparing for impact and time stood still. realizing what happening, my left foot came to the rescue, basically dislocating itself like a snake's jaw, and flew way out in front of my plummeting body. i caught myself! my music kicked back in, i brought my arms back down and time found it's rhythm. "congratulations," said the man in my ipod. was he mocking my sloppy near-fatal fall? he continued on to tell me i had completed my run, but i think he was laughing at me on the inside.

for my next run i may switch it over so there is a girl inside my ipod. i think she'd be more understanding with a mini crisis like that.

girl, interrupted

2008-02-06T13:06:00.000-05:00

as the distant sun prematurely began to sink in the gloomy sky, there was still hope to continue my scheduled 35 minute run from yesterday. the rain seemed to thin out while the dark clouds and dense fog remained. aj and i discussed our plan of action over the culinary masterpiece that is the california chicken salad from o'charley's and decided that after finishing some errands we were going to go home and run. we got to our apartment a little after 8 pm and it was hardly sprinkling out. apparently molly mcweather knew what she was talking about.

we rushed inside to inspect our previously soaked running shoes fearing the worst. aj's shoes were as dry as the sahara, while mine seemed to make no progress what so ever! as i pondered how a man's size 13 shoe could dry quicker than a woman's size 5.5, i encouraged aj to finish his run. he could clearly see that i was disappointed about my soggy situation, but reinforced the fact that i had accomplished something amazing during the first hurricane to hit ohio. i had run for 10 minutes solid. underwater. so with that, i gladly took the compliment while my shins gladly took the break.

fast-forward to today, and a few things have changed. (the weather not being one of them.) my shoes are now dry and i am curious to see if my sensor survived the flood. i am assuming there should be no problems seeing as how nike had to of clearly foreseen such events occurring, thus taking preventative measures to ensure i, the consumer, would not be let down. aside from the techy stuff, my body is doing great. the small pains i was beginning to have in the fronts of my shins have faded and now, on the day i am scheduled to just hit the gym, i am contemplating a run. maybe i'll just compromise and run one mile (without walking) on top working out. i have a 35 minute run scheduled for tomorrow morning at 6 am and i don't want to throw my running schedule off too much by feeling the need to run extra. i mean, the marathon is still eight months.

plenty of time, right?

springtime for hitler*

2008-02-05T08:46:00.001-05:00

as my eyes struggled to open, i heard olie softly whimpering from his cage. he usually sleeps in bed with us, but after cleaning the apartment last night he was curled up in his cage like a little meatball and was too cute to wake up. now, at 5 am, he realized he had slept through the night in his cage instead of the comfort of our bed and was not very happy. i got up, blindly fumbled to open his cage, then placed him in bed with us. he quickly ran up to the top of the bed to curl up next to aj's head with just enough room for me. the perfect leslie/olie/aj sandwich in his dog eyes. getting situated, he began licking himself (which is always the sound i want to fall back asleep to), then, with all the excitement of getting in bed with us he realized he needed to go outside. he got up and climbed over me as clumsily as possible, then back again, and then on to the foot of the bed. yes folks, we had a sleep walker on on hands. so i got up.

olie and i stood outside as the 55˚ breeze swirled around me, lifting my crazy black bedhair to the sky. it was unseasonably warm and olie thought it would be a good time to run around like a rabid dog. i tried to calm him as we went back into the apartment but he wasn't having it. i looked at the clock and it was already 5:24 am. only six minutes until the alarm was going to go off and alert me that it was time for my morning run. i laid back down in an attempt to enjoy the few minutes i had left on the clock. olie soon realized running around like a chicken with it's head cut off at 5 in the morning was not so fun alone. he joined aj and i in bed and we all fit back together like perfect puzzle pieces. that is until the alarm went off only moments later.

just a few months ago i would have hit snooze and gone back to sleep.. but now, having finally learned to get up like a big girl at the age of 24, i put my alarm clock on the floor far away from the bed. i have to get up. i cannot stand the sound of an alarm clock that does not have a radio option. the beeping makes my ears bleed. seriously. i popped out of the bed, turned the damn thing off, flipped on the lights and sat on the edge of the bed to pet olie and started to wake aj up. after convincing me that olie was in fact the queen of france, i got aj out of bed. mission accomplished.

as i got dressed i was excited to get back outside. i generally just get mad at pseudo-springtime, but this time i was happy and very interested to see what running in warmer weather would feel like. so, i left the apartment a few minutes before aj because of the excitement but mostly because the man in my ipod was telling me i needed to begin my workout. i don't want to disappoint the man in the ipod. i stepped outside to see a number of people leaving for work, hit the center button of my ipod to begin my run and i was off.

rounding a curve in the first stretch of my run i thought i felt a raindrop hit my hand. between my running pants, hoodie, bandana and hat, my hands are pretty much the only part of my body that are exposed. i started to look up and around to see if it had actually started raining or if i had made it all up. after a few more drops hit my hands i realized it was sprinkling. the air was fresh and the small amount of moisture was rather refreshing. i reached my five minute mark, and remembering my blog from yesterday, i decided to keep running instead of walking yet. i looked up to the clouds and at that very moment and a large streak of lightening fell from the sky right over my head. the sudden flash blinded me and it took a moment for my eyes to readjust back to the black of the early morning. i waited to hear the thunder that followed but couldn't hear much over isaac brock singing in my ears, "early, early in the morning; it pulls all on down my sore feet; i wanna go back to sleep." not today isaac, not today. i was running past my five minutes and kept going. i knew i was going to have an amazing run.

i entered a small cal de sac with about five houses on it and very wooded. the rain was starting to pick up and running under the pines had a unique and comforting feel to it. very east coast feeling. i realized i was still running as i passed small landmarks that i generally began to walk at. the cool rain helped keep me going, and besides, i just couldn't justify walking in the rain. getting back out on to the main road the storm overhead got vicious and i felt like i was standing under niagara falls. i couldn't believe it. my feet were completely soaked and i started to worry that the nike+ sensor in the bottom of my left shoe might drown. with a few more bashes of lightening and a flash flood that was rising to my ankles, i unfortunately decided to run back to the apartment.

once the entrance of my building was insight, i could see aj standing outside scanning the streets and parking lots looking for me. we made eye contact and i motioned for him to meet me in the sauna. at that same moment the man in my ipod told me i had completed ten minutes.

ten minutes!

i have not run for ten consecutive minutes ever. well, ok, there was this small moment in time.. many, many years after the time i tried skipping instead of running in gym class. i was throwing around the idea of joining the air force and a friend told me that in basic training you needed to be able to run two miles in 18 minutes. 18 minutes? i did the math and realized that was two back-to-back nine minute miles. i decided i needed to condition myself and started running on the treadmills at the gym i had just joined. i was doing 12-something miles. i quickly realized the air force was not for me.

in the dryness of the sauna, aj and i talked about our brief jog in the rain. since i had left before him he had only gone a few minutes before noah came cruising by on his arch. i, on the other hand, had gone for 10:36 without walking a single step of it! i was so mad that that bitch mother nature decided her stupid plants and trees needed a drink.. i mean i was having an amazing run! defeated, i decided it wasn't the end of the world and if i had done it once that i could do it again. after trying to dry ourselves aj and i returned home and decided if it wasn't too wet out when we got off work that we would start our run over in the evening. the overly enthusiastic weather gal promised the rain would let up, so i was going to believe her.

even though this run was small, i am still posting it in here proudly. and if molly mcweather was telling the truth this morning i will post the results of my real 35 minute run later on tonight.

*attention: the title "springtime for hitler" is by no means an anti-semitic statement. whenever the weather reaches spring-like temperatures i always refer to it in this manner, referencing the fictional play from the producers. so, if you didn't get it or were offended by it, please, go obtain a sense of humor or go see the play and/or movie. it's really very good. even in the nosebleeds.

two for one special

2008-02-04T13:56:00.001-05:00

sometimes it is hard to get to a computer to blog with the craziness that the weekend brings, but it is never too hard to get out and run. because of the weather, aj and i swopped friday's run for saturday and had a full weekend of training.

for saturday we had 40 minutes of running scheduled. as aj and i were getting dressed and setting our ipods, i realized mine was dead. completely dead. needless to say, i had to sit and wait for it to charge enough for 40+ minutes of running. i told aj to go ahead without me. as he left, i went and plugged my ipod into my computer and sat down to read a new book i had just purchased the day before. our dog, olie, was more than excited that i had not left like aj had and decided we needed to have some quality puppy play time. after a few attempts to start a game of fetch and some whining/crying, he realized that i was pretty involved in my newly started book and he accepted the fact that i was not going to throw his tattered rope or disgusting pig ear he kept sitting on my leg. defeated, he tried to finagle his little body somewhere in between me and my book. you see, olie is not the most graceful of dogs and ended up sitting on my new paperback book.

i only got through one chapter that day.

i continued to busy myself by creating a new playlist for my run and surfing the web. i had finally had enough of sitting around and hoped that my ipod was charged enough. i feared it dying in the middle of my run and losing my running progress, but olie was still antsy and i wanted to get out of the apartment. i put him in his cage, tied my shoes and was on my way.

i started my run and by the time the man in my ipod told me i had completed five minutes already, i realized i had ran every step of it. it was then that i started walking. i don't think i had run for five minutes solid since right before the time in middle school when i thought i was "beating the system" by skipping when we were running laps in gym class. little did i know then it takes way more energy to skip than it does to run. with that knowledge, i have not been skipping during our training.. but once from a distance, it looked like aj may have been. he has heard the skipping story before. maybe he was trying it on for size.

once i reached the 35 minute mark i felt like i was beginning to experience a runner's high. the setting sun's rays were spilling through the trees on the horizon and ever so softly warming my cheeks. the wind blew gentle, effortlessly helping me along the way. and on top of all that, matt pryor was serenading me with every step, "our boats collide, we'd feel the breeze; we'd stay afloat and make the most of everything." it was truly a beautiful moment.

i took a turn at the next intersection and made my way down a medium grade hill. the hill ended in a cul de sac and i knew i'd have to make my way back up it on the other side. i was still feeling my high and decided i could handle a little hill. on my way back up to the top i felt so accomplished i couldn't help but to smile. (bear with me.. i'm not getting sappy on you, i am building to a good story here.)

as i kept running i saw some bikers approaching me. they were two guys around my age in pretty good shape. by the aerodynamic-ness of their helmets i assumed they were some fellow fitness fans and was happy to see others out being healthy. i felt somewhat of a camaraderie as we were about to cross paths. i felt like i wanted to do a low wave to them.. you know, the type of wave one harley rider gives to another harley rider when passing on the road? when we were side by side i smiled and saw the one closest to me had began to say something. hot damn they think i'm cool i thought.. i bet they want to compliment me on my form! or ask what i'm training for! or tell me they respect running because it is so much more difficult than riding a bike!

"how's your run going?" guy number one asks. "great!" i replied ready to have a mini conversation about how cool fitness is. guy number one then pulled his bag around from his back and reached in as guy number two watched intently. "would you like to talk about christ or watch this video about or lord and savior?"

what the hell?

completely taken back, and bummed they didn't want to talk about fitness i replied more breathy than the first time, "no, i can't, i'm sorry.. i can't let my heart rate go down."

i promptly put my right earphone back around my ear and ran in the other direction at a faster pace than i had gone yet. (you can actually see the peak in my run near the end.) mormons. who knew?

it was right around that time that the man in my ipod told me that my run was complete. i did a short cool down walk and made my way to the sauna. as i approached the sauna door i could hear that someone was in there and hoped it was aj to save me from the mormons. instead it was an older asian lady i had not seen in the gym before. i asked if there was room for me and she gladly invited me in with a heavy accent. i laid down and lifted my leg to the ceiling and started stretching. "een mi cousty we haav biiig saunas an noone lee down causs dey dieee!" she told me. "haa old aar yuu?" it was a good thing i had actually thought about my age this morning because at the moment i had almost forgotten. "i'm just about to turn 25." "ahhhhhh, yuu juss a bebeee." we continued talking and i caught what i could through her accent. she complained about her water bill being too high and right when it got to the point where we were talking a little too much after a 40 minute run, the timer went off and i was out of there.

i came home to find aj in the office and he wanted to know all about my run. apparently he had also had a run in with the mormons, but he knew better than to give them eye contact. i guess i'll know better next time.. or so i thought!

(to get that joke you should probably keep reading on to sunday's run, which i promise will be much shorter.)

after saturday's run aj and i felt great. we were not sore and were actually very excited to get out on the sidewalk. we had 45 minutes scheduled for our run and headed out the door a little before 5 pm. i started the run much like i had the day before. in no time the man in my ipod told me i had completed five minutes, and again after hearing that i started walking. tomorrow i swear i'll keep running.

i finally decided to run out on the main road after much discussion with aj a few days before. we scoped it out while driving and saw that there was only a small stretch of sidewalk that was not finished. maybe five or six feet. as i ran down the first stretch of road i could smell chicken wings as i passed golden coral. i am not a big fan of this particular restaurant but it had been a while since i had eaten and it got my stomach going. further down the road, after making a turn i passed a car wash and the small was horrendous! it smelled like wet trash and what i would think the dirty snow on the side of the road in the winter would smell like. there were a few sweet undertones here and there but overall it was pretty raunchy. rounding my last turn and passing what i assumed was a lot of super bowl traffic i sucked up an unhealthy amount of fumes and decided that this route was not a good route to take. i was pissed and so was my nose. (apparently you are much more sensitive to scents when you run than any other time.)

i made my way back around to the comforts of my complex and breathed in the sweet smells that it holds. i swear everyone was doing laundry because i could smell dryer sheets galore. after walking a bit to enjoy the bounty fresh goodness i started to pick my speed back up. i began approaching a woman with two large boxers and a four year old. i am sure her dogs are lovely and well trained, but i didn't want to run by them and find out. i crossed the street to the vacancy on the other side of the road. to my surprise she followed. all i could picture in my head was blood, guts and disembowelment. at that time i heard the sound of about a half dozen ambulances speeding down the main road a block back. at least if i get attacked i know medical help is not too far off. as i neared the woman and her 3 foot companions i smiled and i could tell the small boy was trying to tell me something. not wanting to be rude, and thinking they could possibly be lost i pulled my right earphone off to hear what they had to say. the woman seemed embarrassed that her son had made me stop running as she rolled her eyes at him. she kindly apologized and said that he just wanted to know if i had heard the ambulances too.

next time i will be sure to not make eye contact with anyone. no bikers. no kids. not even aj. (sorry aj.)

brrr..

2008-01-30T10:33:00.001-05:00

16˚ fahrenheit. wind chill 0˚. 6 am.

dramatic enough? i don't think any intro could be dramatic enough for this morning's run. we knew going into it that we were going to have a damn cold run, but i had no clue it would be so windy.

as we exited our apartment building, aj went right and i went left in typical fashion. after about a minute i knew we'd meet on the other side of the block as long as neither of us turned into ice cubes or got blown away. right before passing, the thought of quitting had already ran through my head. why not just cross-train today.. you know, inside? no, we couldn't. i wasn't going to let a little wind or antarctic conditions scare me away. no, i was going to run damn it.

it was a good thing i thought to grab some paper towels to throw into my hoodie pocket before hitting the sidewalk. i don't typically spend more than a nanosecond in the cold, but once in the 7th grade i went ice skating with my middle school and my nose dripped like a leaky faucet. i knew this run would be much more painful than that school trip and i wanted to be prepared. not too far into my trek i had to whip it out. the mucus in my face must dislike the cold as much as i do because it wanted out of the wind and into my pocket. i had to actually stop running a few times to blow because there was just so much of it. it was quite a sight. especially after it started freezing in my pocket. what colorful imagery, i know.

(if you look down to where my run is posted from my nike+ you can actually see the drops in the graph where i had to stop to blow my nose. so sad.)

i found a row of garages that sort of blocked the wind. i decided to do laps around them. once i could feel some blood pumping through my cheeks i decided i was warm enough to man up and leave the security of my garages and face the open road. bad call. with the wind hitting me full force my ass actually went numb. no joke. with every impact of my feet hitting the frozen ground i think icicles fell from my butt. to make sure my ass hadn't detached itself and returned to the comforts of my bed while i was running, i reached back and grabbed it with both hands. thankfully my hands felt my ass, but my ass didn't feel my hands. oh well, only about 10 minutes to go..

as the man in my ipod told me that my run was almost done, i made my way back towards our apartment. i saw aj running and was happy he hadn't turned to an ice block like i almost had. we walked shortly after our time was up to help our muscles cool down and stretch a bit, but standing in the wind pushed us to go next door and into the sauna.

we quickly warmed up in the relaxing dry heat of our wooden oasis and sipped on cold water as we shared our frigid stories. we stretched our muscles and kicked back until some loser came and turned the lights out on us! aj made a typical "aj noise" and the man realized that he wasn't the only person cool enough to be in the gym at 6:30 in the morning. he turned the lights back on. we gave each other a stare as the d-bag was joined by a buddy. they began running on the two treadmills that are in the gym and began talking about which of their muscles were sore. it sounded like they had just started a training program much like ours. we laughed and had another sip of water as we thought about how much more hardcore we were for running outside in the elements.. basically winning at running.

aj and leslie - 1

d-bag and pal - 0

the morning after

2008-01-29T10:16:00.000-05:00

yesterday's run went great and kept me energized until about 3 pm.. then i think the previous night's chipotle decided i should sleepy. i wanted to go to bed around 7 pm, but aj assured me i was not six years old and that i could stay up like a big girl.

so at 8 pm i fell asleep on the couch.

after awaking from yet another dream at the playboy mansion, i tried to get up to go to the ladies' room. apparently while i was hanging out with hef and the girls, someone decided it would be hilarious to remove my calves and replace them with bricks. i had to march my ass (literally) to the bathroom. upon returning i tried stretching and after failing miserably i decided it was time to take it to the next level. the sauna.

heat is always good for sore muscles so aj and i got all warmed up and stretched out in the schvitzer for about 20 minutes. after that i felt as limber as ever! satisfied, i decided to go to bed (finally) and get a good nights' sleep. at 2 am i awoke to the liter of water i quickly drank before bed screaming at me to get out. when i stood, it seemed our favorite little prankster had returned to gank the precious calves i had spent so long heating and stretching out and replaced them yet again with bricks. i recalled my marching tactics from earlier in that night and successfully made it to the bathroom in the dark.

now i find myself at work, blogging on the clock, with chunks of debris left behind from the bricks. it's not as bad but i sure can feel it when i walk. i guess i kind of expected something to hurt from running for the first time ever, and i am happy it is as minimal as this is. sure it is annoying, but i am tough and after today the pain should subside.

and just to throw it in, and because i didn't list this in the previous blog, here is our training schedule for this week:

monday: run/walk 35 minutes

tuesday: rest day

wednesday: run/walk 35 minutes

thursday: cross-train 45 minutes-1 hour

friday: run/walk 40 minutes

saturday: rest day

sunday: run/walk 45 minutes

after all of this, i now understand why we get today off in our schedule. the first run is a big deal and you do need plenty of rest and care afterwards. tomorrow i will be back out there at 5:30 am punishing my poor defenseless calves to the bricks. (pun intended?) wish me luck.

loosing my virginity to the sidewalk

2008-01-28T10:13:00.001-05:00

so if you've been living under a rock.. or if you just haven't visited the ol' myspace lately, then you may have missed the BIG news! oh dear god, no.. aj and i are not getting married or having a baby. this is bigger. way bigger.

we have decided to run a marathon!!

yes yes, the running bug has bit us. why so late in life.. i have no clue. i have never (and when i say never i mean like carrot top never being funny) ever liked running. i have always had terrible form, could never breathe, and always managed to bitch more than sweat. that's just the way i'm built.. or so i thought.

now, i can't take credit for sparking the idea of the marathon. no, that was all aj. aj and miranda hobbs. yes you read correctly. miranda hobbs (cynthia nixon) from sex and the city sparked something within aj in the episode when the butt licker guy pushed her into the 9 minute mile pace. now, aj's enthusiasm did not come from anything butt licking-related. this was strictly one of those "hey, wouldn't it be amazing to accomplish something like that?" moments.

after a night of surfing the internet and hardly sleeping aj was declaring his marathon pledge. already on his runner's high without taking his first step he did something crazier than deciding to pick up such a hobby in the first place. he asked me to join.

lol i did. no joke. it was about a full minute of out-loud laughing. and doubt. and panic. and disappointment. (on my end.) maybe i could start with a 5k? thats a start. i think i could run 3.1 miles in about 6 hours. sure. so, i started my researching, and long story short.. i too am going to run a marathon.

and to be sure we are perfectly clear, i DO mean one of those 26.2 mile-type of marathons.. not sex and the city marathon over chipotle-types. (although i do like those types too.)

i'll spare you the thrills of when we purchased our books, shoes, nike+ ipods, armbands, earphones, and wristbands.. read and tested said items, cried (joke), danced (not a joke) and stocked up on much needed carbs via chipotle (again, not a joke). i'll fast-forward you kind readers to today. the FIRST run.

believe it or not the run went amazingly! i would have never guessed that 28 degrees could feel so comfortable. below is the progress from my first run thanks to my handy little running buddy, my nike+. please keep in mind this is from a FIRST run and i have never ran more than one mile in my life. unless i was being chased. and i usually never get chased.

so enjoy these blogs. look at them on your lunch hour. read them during commercial breaks. laugh at them. be encouraged by them. i don't know.. print them off and tuck them under your pillow at night. i'm sure some of you may, and if so that might be creepy. good thing i know how to run now.