Day One, Take Two

I ran again tonight for the first time in 10 days, so I'm pretty much starting over. This challenge has taught me that I can't just drop an exercise regimen into my existing schedule. This is going to require change. After I ran last week, I almost immediately felt like I was coming down with a cold and was sick for the rest of the week. Now I know that I need twice as much sleep to let my body recharge. Bedtime will have to change drastically, which means the rest of my day will have to be managed more efficiently.

After I got over my illness, I still didn't run for a few days because I was busy with some household projects. I helped Trea stain our deck.

And now it's beautiful.

And I changed our bedroom from this:

To this:

We planned to run on Tuesday, but that was the day of the great flood, after which we were delighted by this:

So after all our hard work, tonight I ran. I decided just to go out in our neighborhood instead of taking extra time to drive to the park. About five minutes into it, I remembered something very important: we live on a mountain! I'm still using Podrunner, which alternates walking and running to build up stamina, but today I also used Nike Plus for the first time. Now I have a sensor in my shoe that keeps track of my progress and coordinates with my iPhone. As I listen to music with my iPhone, a female Nike Plus voice will come over the speakers and tell me how I'm doing. As I was running as hard as I could up a very steep hill, I heard her say, "Activity stopped," and my music went silent. Activity STOPPED? Seriously?? Well, thank you very much, Nike Plus. Apparently my pace was so pathetic that my shoe sensor thought I had retired to the sofa. I let the Nike Plus lady know she better check again. I was able to restart my music and track my workout where it left off. It was a little irritating to be insulted by my own phone, but at the same time, I definitely needed a boost. Classifying my hardest effort into "activity stopped" was just the motivation I needed to get to the top of the hill.

I have a profile on Nike's website, and each time I sync my iPhone with my computer, my running progress will automatically be entered onto the site. You can see it here: http://my.nike.com/ataylor13. Today I logged 2.05 miles in 28:27 minutes. That includes both running and walking. I have a long way to go before I can run two miles, but I'm determined. Now that I know how difficult this will be for me, I can plan appropriately and get back on track.