Stealing a song title from Tammy…

I ran again this morning, starting off with a 1 mile run after a light warmup then finishing with a half mile jog.  My stamina has increased slightly and tomorrow I’ll try the reverse order or maybe see if I can stretch it to a mile and a half before stopping.

It’s easy to see how daily running success can be addicting.  It’s a good habit to have.

By the way, I’m not going to prattle on each day about running.  Don’t unsubscribe quite yet.

Getting up and out of bed wasn’t very easy for me.  My leg muscles were tired from yesterday’s unusual exertion and I had one of the worst nights of sleep in months.  I woke up no less than 4 times and the last time I was drenched in sweat.  Weird.  Looks like I may take a nap later today.

I hit the track around 5:30AM this morning better prepared.  I had sync’d my iPod with our Mac at home which has a much better music selection and I even brought a bottle of water with me.  The walk home yesterday was awful without water.  I did a full lap to warm up the muscles and walked a half a lap as a cool down.  Everything seemed in working order, so I pushed on with the idea of running two laps before a cool down.  I pushed that aside when I felt strong starting the third lap and continued all of the way through lap four–one mile!

The one mile point is psycological benefit.  It *feels* like a real accomplishment.  Next stop, two miles!

I used to like to like exercise.  When Tammy and I did the Bill Phillips “Body for Life” program, it made a real impact on us.  We lost fat weight, gained muscle weight and felt better about our lives.  Time passed and things got us out of the habit.  I’ve felt bad about that and worse, I’ve felt old, fat and lazy.  Since I can’t change the “old” part, I decided to work on the “fat” and “lazy” instead.

I set the alarm for 5AM this morning without telling Tammy.  I didn’t want to pressure her to run and I was hoping she wouldn’t want to go.  I like the solitude of running with music plus I was looking for self-motivation.  By 5:15 I was out of bed, dressed and headed to the Missouri State University campus.  I live about a 5 minute walk to the track at Plaster Sports Complex and it’s open to the general public during off hours.  I arrived to find one other runner–someone much more serious than I–doing sprints.  I got my iPod set and jammed the earbuds in place, took a deep breath and started to run.

My goal was staggers–run, then walk, then start again–and it worked well.  I did a half lap at a jog and then finished the lap walking.  Lap 2 was all running followed by a half lap walking, checking my pulse on the way down.  After the walk, it was a lap and a half, then another half lap walk and I finished with a 2 lap jog.

I’m going to try this every morning for a week and see how I feel.  I’m not training for anything specific but just trying to fight off the “fat and lazy” in my life.  Let’s hope it works.