A Holiday Run

It's been awhile since my last run...the half marathon to be exact, not including the run in the airport from one gate to another gate located on the opposite end with 20 minutes to catch my flight. That airport run actually caused a tweak in my ankle and it's been tender ever since. So, I have stayed away from running or even exercise to let it heal (ballooned up as a consequence). I will say that it is healed, but I'm still having issues with my other bad ankle and going to the doctor tomorrow to look at my next steps (eek possibly surgery).

After a dismal weather Christmas weekend (and well, week) and a hard Christmas personally, Houston finally got a stop in the rain and even the sun made an appearance yesterday. I forgot what sunshine looked like. I was eager to put on my running shoes and try out my new Christmas present from Hiroko. It is the Nike sensor for your shoe and ipod that calculates your time, distance, calories, and type of run (much cheaper than the watch I really wanted). It also activates your running playlist through the application on your ipod.

My awesome gift from Hiroko. Love you and thanks so much.

My plan was to walk up to Hermann Park to warm up my muscles, run the 1.98 mile loop, and then walk back. It was cold and I needed the extra warmup. Plus, I wasn't sure how this run was going to go since I haven't done any running since December 4. I figured there would be some huffing and puffing and whining and screaming.

I laced up my shoes (adding my new cool sensor and blue pocket), plugged in the other piece to my ipod, stretched, and headed out (while trying to keep the dogs at bay from bumrushing the door as I opened it). I walked out of my apartment towards the main street that takes me to Hermann Park; I was already feeling the cold even though I had on my under armor shirt and a beanie hat. When I got to the street, I decided to just run. I wanted warmth. I ran the entire block around (1.5 mile loop). It felt good to get out there again. I tried to focus on my breathing. I swear when I am getting flustered from the heavy breathing and wanting to stop for a walk, I meditate my breathing like the book says. It calms me and I can run more. Breathe in...1...2...3...4, breathe out 1...2...3...4, but be mindful of what you are doing.

The one thing I forgot about was all the construction they were doing on the main main road. They have been laying pipe for months and chunks of the sidewalk periodically get taken out of commission. Since I haven't ran this loop in awhile, it completely slipped my mind. When I saw the missing sidewalk chunk, I ran over to the other side to use that sidewalk, but eventually, that side ran out of sidewalk. With the rain, I just didn't want to run on grass. In hindsight, I should have stayed on that side. I looked over to the side I'm used to running on and saw that the sidewalk was reopened even to the point where I have to turn to go home. What I didn't see was the mud. As I approached the last 30 ft, the piles and piles and piles of mud covered the sidewalk and the sides. Did I mention piles? I couldn't just run out on the street, because it's busy with people (shouldve done that anyways, but still had to cross the mudpit). I decided to just walk through it and hope for the best. When I got out of it, my shoes were caked with mud to the point where I couldn't even walk. I stopped to find a stick so that I could work on getting the mud off. It took awhile and my ipod stopped playing (controlled by the Nike app) when I was inactive for awhile. How cool was that? If I started running again, I can pick up where I left off.

Oh, right...back to mud. So, I stood there for about 15 minutes just trying to get the mud off my shoes and decided to go home once I was done. I was so tired and frustrated, but at least I got a run in yesterday morning.

I tried to update my stuff online, but the directions do not follow what actually happens and I couldn't figure it out. But from what I remember, the loop was actually 1.9 miles, I burned almost 190 calories, and I did it in alittle over 18 minutes (some of this time was used on my stop). I didn't calibrate the results, which I found out later gives you even better results. I love my new Christmas gift. I just wish I could figure out how to track my progress like it said can easily be done. This is why they should hire Technical Writers to write their instructions.

Even though it wasn't my best run, I got out there again and it felt good. I can't wait to run again (probably today) and then, I will see if I have a long journey of exercise inactivity to fix my bad ankle.