Finally.

And by good I mean I didn’t quit, I didn’t feel sick, I didn’t get crampy, And I stuck to my schedule. The runs themselves are still sometimes challenging. But that’s the whole point of 0-13.1, right? I was at 0. I want to be at 13.1. I’m slowly slogging away.

Thursday, after not running for a week, I left technology at home and ran in the rain with just a watch to keep my intervals on time. I checked out a path that is at the end of the street that I’ve know about for a while and just didn’t take the time to explore. Turns out, it’s not just one path. It’s a whole bunch. Through this really nice little marsh and fields and a honest to goodness pine grove. The last drops of rain stopped falling just as I reached the entrance so everything was soaked and quiet. I didn’t have my phone so didn’t take any pictures. I’ll say this. It was so peaceful. And calm. And I never would have found it if I wasn’t a runner! I love that. Also, I almost stepped on a frog. But I side stepped just in time. In lieu of actual pictures I doodled you this

I chose the Sesame Street News Kermit because he’s the best. Also, I love when he says “Kermit THE frog here”

Friday I had a date cancel on me. So I invited myself over to Jennie’s and we sat outside in the sun and drank wine. It was fantastic. Spring is here. Well, it was here. It was 39 when I woke up this morning. I’m trying to block it out.

Saturday I went shopping. I hate shopping. But my friends were going and I could use a few new things. And I ended up doing the most shopping (I think. I at least kept up with the biggest shopper if it wasn’t me). It involved hours of walking in flip flops. And not a lot of water drinking. Then I drank an entire bottle of wine by myself. And then I went to sleep incredibly late. You’d think I was still in college.

My family had evening Mother’s Day plans (hearts to the Mother’s in my life!). I only had to do a little prep so I had the whole day to run. I woke up and said “Oof, no thanks” but then I logged into my email and it had EXPLODED with facebook posts from my running group. And they had all completed their weekend runs.

It now happens every weekend. It’s awesome. And of course if they were all out running all over the country and world (what up, Australia?), so I had to get out there too. The run was not great, thanks to a severe lack of water in my body. But I survived. And I’ve run much, much worse. And actually, my body felt amazing after. I’m still learning this lesson: I’ve decided to set this goal for myself. And for a little while I have to keep it in mind whenever I do anything. Really if I had just kept drinking water all day Saturday and for the better part of Sunday morning I would have been ok. I’m just so bad at water drinking on the weekend. Grr. On the other hand, a couple months ago I would have opted for the nap instead of a run. I’m really glad I didn’t. 

Last night was Wednesday Monday Night Running Club, though we were down a runner due to injury. Sad. But instead of running she made us an amazing dinner (my hungry runner stomach thanks you!!!). My running program is broken into 4 week chunks. Each chunk is in it’s own file folder. For a million weeks (pretty much since I started in November) I’ve been in the 5-8 week folder. This week I’ve moved into the 9-12 week folder!!!!!!!!!! I can’t tell you how exciting it is. It means I’ve finally been working hard enough and consistently enough to keep moving through the program. It makes me feel like I’m getting my life back into balance. It’s almost peaceful. Also. Terrifying. These workouts are getting longer and harder!

I was supposed to run 25 minutes, but was allowed to still have a walking intervals if I felt I needed it. Jumping from 5 minutes intervals to 25 minutes was a little daunting. Plus, I knew Jennie would just make me run 30 minutes (and by make, I mean she would say “You know you want to” and she would be right, but I think it’s still a tad too soon). So to help myself out I said let’s do intervals of 8 minutes running, 1 minute walking. Those are the longest intervals I’ve done in while. Possibly since last spring. My legs were tired and I didn’t think I could keep up the whole thing. We stopped to stretch halfway through to try to make my legs feel a little better. Then I proposed we take an extra minute walking between intervals 2 and 3. After interval 3 (which felt better thanks to the stretching) I knew I’d need 2 minutes again. Jennie always encourages me to push a little harder (it’s reason number 4,208 I like running with her) so to propose it, I knew I’d need to bargain. I traded an extra minute of walking for an extra 3 of running, bringing us to a 40 minute run. Because I knew I could. And I knew Jennie knew I could. At the corner of her street she said 10 seconds left. I said let’s just run to your house. Then she upped it to running until the Garmin said 3 miles. So I followed her. And damn did it feel like a huge accomplishment! All told it was 35 minutes of running!!!!!!! 

And 5 minutes of walking. But we won’t talk about that.

I’ve talked about this before, but I like to write encouraging messages on my mirror. For a while it’s said “Goals are dreams with a deadline; 13.1 in 2013”. After this week, I’m feeling more and more confident that it will happen. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Hearts and goals!!