Sarah Gone Wild

Well, you can, but not because I didn’t run last night! I ran. Oh, yes. I ran.

Using WalkJogRun, I routed my run last night and discovered that I completed 1.84 miles last night. I ran 1.5 of that. The rest was warm-up and cool-down. It took about 25 minutes, so obviously I’m a slow-ass runner. After I was done running, I went inside and did a Total Gym resistance workout. I’d say aiming for a 5K next month would be completely possible, if I can just find a way to work one into my schedule.

This morning, I feel pretty darn good. My knees aren’t killing me (which is good, because I let a friend borrow one of my knee stabilizers and couldn’t find my other one, so I just had an Ace elastic knee support on my left knee and nothing on my right – the right being the one I’ve had surgery on and the left being the one that still needs surgery).

It’s nice to think back to my marathon training and remember all the things I need to do. Strike heel to toe. Keep your shoulders relaxed and make sure you shake your arms out every now and then to keep from getting tense. Keep your back straight, especially when running up and down hills (and fuck our neighborhood – we have a lot more hills than I realized). Breathe in through your nose and out through your  mouth (I have a hard time with this, but when I start getting tired or out of breath, I just focus on counting to four, in through the nose, out through the mouth – it helps settle me back down). Also, to help keep from getting too tense, pretend you are holding a potato chip between your thumb and one finger. Unfortunately, I still got a shoulder cramp. Oh, I hate those. I always get one in my right shoulder, right on top. Runners, chime in. Why is that? Is that normal, or is it maybe a lingering side effect from separating my shoulder in high school?

I puffy heart the SassyPod. I don’t know how reliable the pedometer is, as it didn’t read anything when I just carried it around the house, but it’s nice to have that function available. And the one thing my dumb ass forgot to read about before taking off was how to adjust volume. Seriously, I have never owned an Apple product before in my life, so I was clueless when it came to turning the damn thing up…so I dealt with it and just ran (now I know you just use the wheel). I think I’m so excited about the music I’ve loaded that the running is just something that happens while I’m rocking out.

Keep the music suggestions coming. I’ve got tons of Black-Eyed Peas (just need the new album) and No Doubt/Gwen Stefani, some Fergie, Linkin Park, Nine Inch Nails, CMX, Jay-Z, Destiny’s Child, Nelly, Natasha Bedingfield, Daft Punk, Kings of Leon, Lady GaGa (but I need more of her stuff), Garbage, Eminem, Ciara, Fall Out Boy, All-American Rejects, some hip-hop/pop singles (Daddy Yankee, Chamillionaire, Chingy, Akon, M.I.A., Kanye, Beyonce, Duffy, Katy Perry, Lily Allen, the Ting-Tings, Flo Rida, Sean Kingston, Pitbull) and lots of other techno music and old-school rap. Oh, and Tom Jones’s “It’s Not Unusual” – I enjoy a good chuckle when I’m on the run. Hehe.

I love having this stuff all together and on shuffle – I never know what’s coming next and I highly enjoy going from Beyonce to Linkin Park to Daft Punk. It’s all got such great energy, even though it’s so different. The variety REALLY helps keep me going. I’m going to map out a 2-mile run and a 3-mile run and see where I get over the next few weeks.

So, in addition to more music suggestions and thoughts on my shoulder cramps, I’m asking for comments once again to help me out. Since I’m just starting back in, should I only run every other day and mix in my workout DVDs on non-running days? Or do I need to take days off completely? I’d really rather not do that…man, I feel so great today. I’m so proud of myself and impressed with how my first run went and so glad that I don’t feel broken down today. Yay, me! Oh, and this morning the scale was down two pounds from yesterday, so I feel like the tracking is really going to help for next week’s weigh-in. Woot, woot!

Oh, and if anyone has a 4th generation nano and would like a clear acrylic case for it, I have one. I didn’t notice that the VideoShell case I bought was 4th gen, not 5th and it so doesn’t fit. Let me know if you want it and it’s yours.

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