day 32 - 51 days to go - I ran four freakin' miles!

Yay!  Four mile day -- I did it!!  "High fives" people... I fricken fracken ran four miles!

My hip is a little achey and I feel a little stiff but I'm still standing.  It wasn't the quickest time anyone has ever run four miles in -- towards the 3 mile & 3 1/2 mile points I definitely was running less quick but at the end of it all, it took me 1:02:40 to run those four miles.  it works out to about 3.8 mph - but I am quite OK with that because about a month ago if you told me I was going to even do Disco Abs for an hour, I would've told you you were nuts.

And another proud moment:  I ran for as long as I ever had.  Last week I ran for fifteen minutes straight - today, 22 minutes!  I ran for 22 minutes before walking for a few, to sip some water and wipe my brow!  Woo.  And then I ran for ten minutes, 11 minutes and a few series of five minutes and I think total running time was around 48-50 mins -- lost track of it -- those little Indians dancing around the fire, roasting marshmallows and singing "Let's Get It Started" by the Black Eyed Peas - around 50 mins began to distract me.  (This was a hallucination.   I think...)

I did learn this about the treadmills at my gym that I never thought I would have a reason to know or care about, that kind of sucks.  There's a 60 minute max.  So at 60 minutes the treadmill automatically goes into "cool down mode."  You could imagine my dismay when I was less than a quarter of a mile away to the big four goal at 1hr, with power song blasting,  Indians dancing, sweat dripping, grin a spreading across my face and the freakin' treadmill goes from 4.4 down to 3.1 and loses my incline.  GRRRR.  REALLY?  I mean REALLY!?  Now is the time, the friggen machine decides I've worked out long enough?  I was able to up the speed and reset the incline but every one minute after 60 mins - it would return back to cool down.  Thank God I was done at 2 mins and 40 into the cool down because at 65 mins the thing completely stops.

So, tomato faced and fresh off the treadmill, I addressed it with the gym guys who looked at me like I was nuts.  Finally they fiddled with the thing and discovered that it was indeed preset for a 60 min. max.  "Huh, no one ever told us about this before."  they offered no solution, but did think it was cool that I was training for a 1/2 marathon.  The twenty year old, buff trainer said that he too was a runner but had never braved anything more than a 5K up to now!

Well, HA.  Take that world.  20 year old trainer - too scared to take on a half marathon... not ME! :)

Guess I'll have to be pro-active once I reach an hour and immediately re-start -up.  I'll take the one hour mark as my "walk for a minute time" and get on with it.  Who would've thunk I'd ever have such problems...

XO

Jen