Week Two

Feels like it's been a busy week, but it really hasn't; just lots going on around me.

Running in the evening last week was GREAT.

The weather has been Beautiful and it feels so good to get out after being cooped up in the office all day.

Haven't been as sore as I figured I would be.
I was honestly hurting worse after swimming with Rebecca last Wednesday than after running ~3 miles with the team on Thursday; but I'm pretty sure that's because I was trying to teach her how to do butterfly, which I not very good at myself :)
Only thing that's really starting to worry me is how much gas it's taking to get across town and back to run with the team. I might have to come up with a route closer to home and only run with the team once a week. I REALLY don't want to do that, but I can only wring so many dollars out of the budget for gas...

Something I find very odd compared to things at home: Huntsville is much larger (population and square miles) than where I used to live, but there's a definite lack of public transportation. I couldn't 'just take the bus' even if I wanted to. Bike lanes are still a pretty new thing and very few roads have them, much less decent side walks - which doesn't make much difference anyway because the city is so spread out. There's just no way to get from point A to point B without driving. *shrug* Such is life; we just have to deal with it.

Week One

I love swimming, and have always been pretty active - swam for my high school and college teams. So, when graduation started to sneak up on me, I invented this fuzzy plan that I'd train for a triathlon or something...
Several months after my last swim meet I had graduated, Cum Laude, Had scored my first 'real' job, supporting NASA (how cool is that for a first job!), and comfortably settled into life as an independent adult. But something was missing...

Then one day a friend told me she was training for a triathlon with a local chapter of 'Team In Training'. I checked them out http://www.teamintraining.org/tnt2008/1/ and realized this is exactly what was missing! I needed to get active again and more importantly, start hanging out with a team again - with the benefit of supporting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. So I signed up to run the Mercedes Half Marathon this coming February - a) because there aren't any triathlons until spring, b) because I've never run a long distance event before in my life and wanted to start small and work up to a Full Marathon sometime later.

The first week is supposed to be the easiest, but has in fact proven to be the most difficult...

Finding the meeting place for the first team practice was an adventure (in the Chinese sense!) because I don't know downtown very well and managed to get Lost Lost Lost!

While I'm not in terrible shape, I've always been a swimmer, which means my muscles are NOT developed for running! Just walking in the mornings is making me sore, and I've no doubt that's going to get worse before it gets better as my muscles and joints slowly adjust to the idea of impact sports.

But the inspiration is still with me and I'm very excited to keep running! (or limping/jogging as the case may be for a week or so yet).