Yeah Baby, I'm BACK!

First, thank you all for your encouragement on yesterday's post, and truly during this entire month. Y'all know it's been pretty much a bitch of a January.

The fantastic news is I finally got a run in yesterday (it had been 8 days since my last run). It's freezing here, so I was at the gym and on the treadmill. I warmed up for .25 miles at a quick 4.0 mph walk, and then increased my speed to 5.5 mph (10:54 pace). With Dave Matthews Band in my ears, I ran my first mile feeling strong.

As a rule, I'm a run/walk girl. I run faster than I probably should and then need to walk to recover, and then I start over again. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you know, it's one of those things us beginning runners like to think we need to improve.

Anyway, yesterday I kept the treadmill at that 10:54 pace and kept on running. At mile 1, I said, "Okay, just make it to 1.5 miles and you can walk." I felt okay at 1.5, so I kept going to 2 miles. During that half mile, my self talk was "How freaking cool would it be to run 3 miles straight without a walk break? You've been out of it for so long, feeling like crud for too many weeks--how amazing would it feel to come back strong? Just go for it. Run the whole 3 miles and don't stop."

And that's what I did. I kept pushing and didn't take a break. The last half mile was tough, and it was all mental to get through it. I didn't take any water breaks, either, because I can't drink and run at the same time, so I was getting parched too. But there's a line in the sand that, once you draw it, there's no going back. I was going to run those 3 miles no matter what.

I felt so proud of myself and happy and jazzed about what I'd just accomplished. The mental toughness I'm building when I push through those runs is, I know, what I need to be developing just as much as my heart and lungs and muscles to complete that half marathon in May.

I cooled down for a quarter mile with a slower walk (had to get my heart rate down--it was way up, like 179 when I finished running), and drank my water. I finished 3.5 miles in 40:56. A couple minutes of stretching and I was on my way to pick up the kids.

I'm getting my hair cut today at 1:00 (it's way too long and full now because I haven't had it cut since November, when I took my profile picture), and if work isn't too crazy I'll be back at the gym for another 3 miles. Not sure if I'll complete the same feat as yesterday, it just depends how I feel and I might want to do fartlek stuff instead. Doesn't really matter, as long as I'm putting in the miles.

Oh, and food yesterday was stellar. I couldn't even eat all the food on my plan. I finished around 1300 calories, which is low for what I usually eat. I just was too busy and didn't think about food much. Plus, seriously, this is the best antidepressant I've ever been on. It's either working already and keeping me from wanting to eat everything in sight, or else it's got a fantastic placebo effect. Or, I am just so elated that my children (knock wood and wipe everything off with anti-bacterial wipes =) are healthy and things are normal, that I feel 200% better. Whatever it is, I'll take it.

One more thing (I'm just a rambling fool today)-- I don't have a weight to record because I had to steal the battery from my scale yesterday for my garage door opener. I looked every where for a 3V 2032 battery, but the only place I knew there was one was in the scale. As nuts as I am about weighing myself, I have to get into my house so it was the garage door opener over my obsessive compulsion about the scale. Hopefully today I'll get to the store and buy a battery or two.