The Season's Silver Lining

I know this whole global climate changey thingy is supposed to be bad, but Winter is pretty much the bane of my existence. Cold is not my schtick as I have said many times on this blog before. That is why I'm glad that this Winter (at least so far, I hope this post doesn't jinx it) has been relatively warm. Out of the last 5 days, I have gone running in the morning 4 times. It would have been 5 but between rain, soreness, and work, Monday was a no-go. Every time I have gone out, I ended up pretty sweaty too. I probably would have actually lost some fat at the same time but I keep shoveling food down my gullet so I'm pretty much holding steady on that front. There have only been a couple of legitimately colds days. Then again, it's only mid January so there are another 2.5 months left (or up here in the mountains, it's more like 4).

I went on a little hiking trip back in November. I took a bunch of pictures which I will eventually post here when I get around to it. It wasn't a long trip, nor was it particularly difficult as far as hikes go, but I wrecked the shoes that I run in. They were old anyway. Luckily, this gives me a reason to buy I new pair of running shoes which I probably should have done ages ago. When I say these shoes are old, I'm talking 7 years at the least. This may be the reason my feet hurt so much on days that I run. Since there is a chance I'll be doing a 5K (the one I was supposed to do last year but the weather was terrible), it's pretty important I keep up my running ability. Also, this is the year I really slim down. Not that I'm huge, just what one would call "gay-fat." Time to undo that.

Run Ragged

This is pretty much what I managed to do to myself this week: run myself ragged. From Monday through Wednesday I ended up running 12 miles, which is kind of a lot for me. I even managed to do all of that with a relatively small amount of pain. Today, however, the miles are starting to catch  up with me. My left foot hurts a fair amount, I feel like I have strained something in my left leg, and some muscle just south of my right hip is giving me problems. I was hoping to get a bit more running in today, but between that and the weather (possibility of rain), it may not happen, or at least the 3 miles I'm used to doing in one go. After having been out of work for an hour right now, I'm feeling a little better and the weather hasn't gotten to bad yet, so maybe. We'll see. I guess I'm going so hard now because when it gets cold out for good (or at least until Spring), running will be incredibly rare for me. Trying to burn as many calories as I can before the cold really settles in. As the Starks of Winterfell say, "Winter is coming!"

The Power of Music: An Extra Push

I did not set myself up well for a second jogging session today. I went 1.5 miles this morning before work. No big deal, this part was planned. Where it all went wrong was at work where I started eating a lot of rubbish while at work. Luckily not to the point that I was about to pop (been there before though), but I was feeling a bit on the heavy side. That combined with somewhat sore glutes from this morning (and a 2 mile walk the night before) made me think twice before going another 1.5 miles. I decided to go for it. I didn't get far before it started to not feel so good, but I hit a stride and it was okay for the most part. The iPod I got a few weeks back helped. I have a playlist that I use for running 1) to get the fact that I'm running out of my head as much as possible and 2) the music gets my blood flowing. This second part was crucial today because just when I was about to give up from exhaustion and just walk the rest of the way, these two songs came up that kept me going (actually I accelerated, and it was mostly uphill at this point). The first was from the third X-Men film (the scene in the house where Jean kills Xavier...sorry if I ruined that for anyone) and the second was from "The Two Towers" (the scene where the Rohirrim charge down the hill towards the end of the film). These are two pieces of music that always get me excited. Sometimes, the huge effect that music has on me is a negative. Today, however, it definitely worked for me.