Running on Awesome

Before I get into anything, I done messed something up.  When I set up the original challenge I apparently set it up as goal based instead of time based, so when I posted my numbers for today I “won” the challenge, it ended, and it wouldn’t let me edit anything.  So I had to recreate the Marathon Week Challenge here.  If you were previously entered in, or if you want to join now (thats cool too), please register here.  I sent everyone who was registered a link to the new challenge (except Kate, since she beat me to the punch, WooT!) so hopefully everything will work out.  Yes, I am an idiot.  I will own that.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming…

We are in Day 4 of the Marathon Week Challenge…

…and I am “finished”…

…WooT.

Yesterday I wanted to have 15 miles completed, which happened. WooT!  When I got up this morning wanting to walk or (attempt to) jog outside, and part of me wanted to see if I could FINISH the challenge today.  So I set a course in Google Maps, neglected to check the weather, updated my iPod library, and set out…

The original intention was to go from Point F (originally Point A) which is my apartment complex, to Point B, which is about where my office is located. I was going to take a indirect route that went through a few neighborhoods and went around the mall.  Once I got to Point B I would turn around retrace the exact same route.  It would have come to 9.4 miles total (4.7 miles each way).  Once I got to Point B though, I decided to keep going. I had a route in mind and thought I’d try that.  I would basically do a loop around a large chunk of town, and then retrace the first part of the path as the last part.

All in all, the new path came to 10.2 miles, which brings me up  to 27.23 miles total for the challenge so far.  I originally thought it was 10.8 (I’m on a roll today stupidity wise, I blame the cold) but there was section on the map that was a bit screwy. It would have been a bit longer, but I skipped going through some neighborhoods because the snow was starting to stick to the sidewalks and it was getting slick.

Speaking of the snow…

…when I left the house at 7:17 this morning it was lightly raining, with maybe a little itty bitty bit of sleet.  Manageable, in my opinion.  About 15 minutes past point B, it started coming down harder, and as actual snow.  By point D my hoodie was soaked, my shoes and socks were soaked, my hands were numb, overall not pretty.  About halfway between Point D and Point E the snow started sticking to the sidewalks, which were starting to become slick.  Thats when I decided to bypass part of the path and go home.

Another one of my original intentions was to do a decent amount of jogging during this trip.  I’ve had issues with this before, where I didn’t feel comfortable trying to run or jog outside because I didn’t want to be seen doing it.  I have images of my fat and sweat flying everywhere, and it’s not pretty.  I decided I was bundled up enough today to make that non issue (and to keep most things in place) so I thought I’d try it.  Unfortunately I only jogged about .6 miles of this whole thing, the rest was walking.  I’m just going to go ahead and throw my excuses for why I didn’t jog out there now: My legs were, my feet hurt, the weather sucked, and I didn’t feel like it.  Yeah, it was kind of lazy of me, but I still completed over 10 miles today, that isn’t exactly anything to scoff at, in my opinion.

In summary, here are some of the highlights and lowlights from my walk today:

• Highlight: Got to explore some of the (really nice) neighborhoods around me, that I didn’t really even know existed before.
• Highlight: Ran into a group of joggers when I was going around the mall, WooT to them.
• Highlight: Crossed the friendliest bridge ever.
• Highlight: Completed my goal with time to spare, and am going go try to push myself even farther.
• Highlight: Got a decent workout in and was able get out of the gym for a bit.
• Highlight: Once the snow started coming down I had some really pretty scenary to walk through.
• Lowlight: Slipped on a metal grate and almost fell on my ass.
• Lowlight: Walked past a dead deer
• Lowlight: Had to keep crossing a busy street because the sidewalk on the side I was on kept ending, and there wasn’t enough shoulder to walk on.
• Lowlight: My shoes, socks, clothes were soaked by the time I was done.
• Lowlight: Yeah, I got out of the gym for a bit, but I probably could have picked a nicer day to do it.

So my personal leg of the Marathon Week Challenge is over…kinda.  I’ve decided to bump my personal goal up to 40 miles for this week.  I was thinking of making it a True Double Jeopardy and doubling the goal (making it 52.4 miles), but I’m not sure thats attainable, which means I’ll probably end up making that a challenge for myself in the next few weeks..HA!  So the challenge is still on, and there are still plenty of great people who are working very hard this week.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am SO PROUD OF EVERYONE and we all still need your support.

Hope you have a great weekend.