Somehow I’ve officially become a runner. How the hell did that happen? It was pretty close to official, but it was really solidified when I got a pedicure a couple weeks ago and the girl doing my nails confirmed my black and blue pinky toe nail was from running. God bless nail polish for covering up such lovely injuries. What? I may be getting more athletic, but I’m still a girly girl.
Another nail in the “oh shit, I’m really a runner now” coffin was when I found myself not being challenged enough by my running program. Seriously? The girl who was worried she was going to die during a 5k is now too cool for her training program? That’s right. So I decided to shake things up a bit. I ran longer distances mixed in with walking on the treadmill and didn’t collapse. So what else could I do? The Jeff Galloway app I use for running has two settings: one for people who are trying to get ready for their first 5k (check) and another for people who would like to improve their 5k time. I could feel that I was going faster especially during my running intervals while I was still using the setting for a first 5k. So I thought well, I guess I’ll make the switch.
Well, was I in for a surprise when I went for my prework run yesterday morning when I tried it for the first time. It started off like it normally does with timed intervals of walking and running so I was cool with that. Then suddenly with no warning it told me to run 400 meters. Um what?! I thought we were friends, Jeff. First of all, what is this meters nonsense? I’m American I don’t understand this metric stuff. Ok, so I figured out that it’s about 1/4 mile, but I was definitely confused at first. Secondly I went from 45 seconds of running to a 1/4 mile. Not cool, Jeff, not cool.
I switched off between 400 meters of running and 200 meters of walking about five times and survived, but I was definitely caught off guard for the whole thing. When I got back home I looked at the program for the coming weeks. In a few weeks my long run will be over 7 miles. I’m sorry what? 7?! Yeah, we’ll see how quickly I get there. There may be repeating of weeks on a very regular basis. If you see a girl laying on the side of the track, don’t worry it’s just me.
In other news I really need to decide if I’m going to do my second runDisney race in September. I was all set to sign up than realized the logistics of doing it might be a royal pain in the ass and involve me getting even less sleep than usual on my WDW trips. But if I do it I’ll apparently do it way faster than the Everest Challenge since I’ll be running seven bloody miles.
