training DAY 4

i drove down to nj yesterday to help my mom with various things. so since i'm down here, i decided to drop by dick's sporting goods to see if they had any good deals on cold weather running gear. god must've known that i won't be running after feb 28 and thus buying expensive running gear is foolish, because they were having a 50% off sale for all of nike's cold weather running gear. i scored running tights and a running shirt for $25 each, and i was able to also buy a pair of running shorts for $7! awesome. too bad they don't come with longer legs and bigger lungs. 

this morning i woke up, had breakfast, took care of some things for my mom, and then realized that my day was packed. i had to help my aunts with various "i got this in the mail, what does this mean? is it free?" issues, go to my cousin's parent-teacher conference, and take her to the doctor. by the time i got home, it'd be dark. so i realized that if i wanted to stick to the plan, i'd have to run...now. the idea of running like the wind outside is one thing. doing it is, well, quite another. doing it is just so not as glorious as it looks. i wonder at those people who you see running on highways. i mean, they are either fooling us and live in the shack on the highway, or they're really running like 10-15 miles. anyway, again, i had no excuse. so i slowly got my nice new running gear on (new shiny things really do help with the motivation factor though) and went outside. 

DAY 4: 1.75 miles

total run time: 21 minutes (12 minute mile pace)

since there is no gym here that i can use, sh told me about a website that measures outdoor distances for you. it's so amazing. go to www.mapmyrun.com and check it out. there's a walking path around my parents' development and it turns out that it's exactly .5 miles. so i had to run that 3 and a half times to reach my 1.75 mile mark. halfway through the first loop i wondered how i'd finish. but as hard as it was, i think i did find some sort of a rhythm. if you look at my pace though, you realize that that rhythm was much slower than my treadmill rhythm. i think it's just a lot more work to have to actually move yourself instead of run in place on a treadmill. it makes me wonder if i'll be able to run the 4 mile race at the 11 minute mile pace i'm aiming for. it sounds so slow. but...i'm slower.