Bad, Bad Mood

I didn't start off the day in a bad mood...really!  It probably doesn't help that I got about 2 hours sleep last night, but really that's no excuse.  The culprit is easy to name--Facebook!  Is it just me, or is that site kind of the devil?  (I kid, I kid...sort of)

I, like many people I assume, am friends with a whole lot of people that I wouldn't stop on the street to talk to.  People I went to elementary school with, college "friends", people I exchange emails with at work.  You get the idea.  Of course, I am friends with people I actually communicate with, family (great way to exchange pictures), parents of my kids' friends (great way to arrange play dates and look for sketchy pictures to clue me in always to have playdates at my house)...but the vast majority of people I am facebook "friends" with are people I haven't physically talked to in a hundred years, give or take a few.

At first it's good fun.  Hey look!  There's old whats-his-name!  What a cute family he has now!  Or...Ha!  Look at that receding hair line and pot belly-serves him right!  Like I said, good fun.

But have you noticed that things on Facebook tend to be all flowers and rainbows, all the time?  I mean sure, your BFF from 3rd grade probably has fights with her husband from time to time, but to hear her tell it in status updates he's the Best. Husband. Ever.  Or her kids never fight, or have an accident, or she still keeps in touch with all 627 people from your graduating class.  In fact, they get together every week for dinner.  Does it ever just make you feel inferior? 

You have to put it in perspective of course.  Most people are putting the best of themselves out there, and leaving the ugly out of it.  Why wouldn't they?  But it's still so easy to get caught up in comparison shopping.  He got 317 Happy Birthday's on his wall?  How did he get so many?  People didn't even like him back in the day...

Or, after I had kids I managed to hold on to one friend, because really...who has time for more than one after they have kids?  So how has your junior high nemesis managed to talk on the phone to all of our old classmates every day, meet them for yoga in the mornings, get together for mexican night once a week, create a Wii baseball team with them, and go to book club with them too?  Am I the only one that can't make time to keep friends?  Really?

And let's don't forget the comment judgment.  Was that status update aimed at me?  Was that person's comment a dig at what I said last week?  Is he talking about ME?  Is she making fun of ME? 

It can actually be a bit of a nightmare.  It's worse than any clique in high school ever was.  Does anyone else out there have Facebook Syndrome?

Life Gets in the Way

I woke up this morning to a sick five year old.  Fever, sore throat, tired, cranky.  My plans for today consisted of work, marathon training, carting a kid to dance class, and a bike ride while watching Biggest Loser.  All that got kicked to the curb, or if I'm lucky just rearranged.  Work was obviously cancelled, and dance class looks to be a no-go too.  I really need to run still...and I really don't want to do it on the treaddy!  Torture!  There's a chance that while my lasagna is baking, I can convince my hubby to let me out the door for a run the very second he walks in.  My 3 year old will be harder to convince.  She's a major momma's girl and will not want to let me out of her sight as soon as she gets home.  The run is still up in the air.  At least I should still manage to get my bike ride in while watching BL as long as the kids' bedtime goes off as it's supposed to.

Marathon Training Begins (Kind Of)

I’m training to run a marathon.

I’ve run two half marathons, a 15K, and a handful of 5K and 10K races.  I’ve been running for just over 2 years.  But a funny thing happens every year (all 2 of them!) when I finish my half marathon.  I quit running.  It gets hot and humid outside, I’m sore, I deserve a break…you name the excuse and I’ve probably used it.  Then when I finally do resume running I try to pick back up where I left off and end up hurt.  So, this year when I resumed running I vowed to do it slowly so I wouldn’t get hurt (hopefully).  I’ve been doing a combination of running and walking 3-4 times a week for about 2 months now. 

I’m approaching this very carefully.  First, I’ll run for several months to establish a solid base.  Then, I’ll begin a four month half marathon training plan.  After successfully completing my half marathon in May I will continue to strengthen my base until mid-June when I will begin officially training for a fall marathon.

I’ve decided to do a training plan that identifies training by time, rather than distance.  I get hurt every year at some point during training, and I think a lot of my problem is speed.  Not that I have speed mind you.  I’m actually quite slow.  But I try to do speed workouts, or keep up with a faster paced runner.  Or more often, my training plan says I’m going to do 4 miles, so I’m going to do 4 miles darnit, but I’m tired of being out here on my feet so I’m now going to sprint the last half mile so I can just be done already.  Then I end up hurting myself during those little sprints.  No more!  This year I’m going to run for time.  If I’m supposed to run 45 minutes, then that’s what I’ll do whether I make it 3 miles or 8 miles (yeah right!) in that time.  I’m hoping this will discourage me from doing crazy things to try to make up distance, and maybe my knees and hips will make it to race day in working order.

Week 6

I finally made it to Week 6 (though it actually took me about 9 weeks to do so) and today ran my first 30 minutes straight in months.  It felt great!  I ran 2.67 miles in 30 minutes.  I added a couple of minutes of warmup and cooldown walking on, because I think that has really helped me protect my knee from the old familiar pain.  I ran the full 30 minutes and I felt really good.  Now I can get back into thinking about training for an actual race!

Week 5

Week 5 calls for walking 3 minutes, running 12 minutes, then repeating to start the week.  By the end of the week you are supposed to walk 3 minutes, run 15, walk 3, then run the rest of the session.  Today I walked 3, ran 13, walked 3, then ran 11.  I made it 2.37 miles.  Tomorrow is supposed to be the start of Week 6, but I'm not quite up to where I'm supposed to be so I'm going to continue Week 5 until I feel good and ready for Week 6.  Especially since Week 6 is the last one of this program and I want to make sure I've taken full advantage of this program before I move on to more strenuous training.