Monday, April 30, 2007

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a .... SWAT helicopter?

A gunman on the loose always makes for an interesting run, yeah? Not that I was actually running from the gunman but they were still searching for him when I started pounding the pavement. Around a mile and half it was like a military fly over or something. Army choppers, SWAT choppers, and maybe even a news chopper flew past. It felt like I should have dropped to my stomach and spread eagle to prove I was unarmed. I had to bump up to running 2 minutes and walking 1 minute today. I had a lot on my mind this evening so it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. I didn't really start to fatigue until about the second mile.

When I finished running, I gobbled down a turkey sandwich (get it?...gobbled...oy, I crack myself up) and headed across town for volleyball. They were still searching for the gunman. We won all three games! Whoop, whoop. Spring champs or bust!! I'm pretty sure that they are still searching for the gunman, which would make most people rest uneasy, but I'm really too wiped to care.




Oh, and I started reading a new book last night. One that's not a textbook!!! My brain didn't quite know what to do about that!

<---- The New Book!

Sunday, April 29, 2007

It was a green thumb day.

As I was eating my Cheerios this morning I flipped the "Grandma's Words of Wisdom" daily calendar that I have sitting on my desk. It read, "April 29th - Try to have a garden wherever you live, even if it's a pot on the front step. Plants are good for you, and it's good to get your hands dirty now and then." I thought that was pretty fitting considering I had planned today to be my re-potting of the plants day. All day long I puttered around out on my patio playing in the dirt. It was nice. I wish spring were a little further along so that I could go get some other plants to putter around with. I was nice to the little creatures as well. My little red lantern bird feeder looks very welcoming hanging out on my patio. Hopefully the birds appreciate the effort!

No running today. My new shoes were calling my name though. I'm ready for tomorrow's run! As long as I keep preparing myself for the next run, I think I'll keep heading out the door. Tomorrow is volleyball too. Double trouble! At least I will sleep well.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

It's like the new car smell, but better!!!

I love the smell of new shoes! It's definitely better than the smell of old shoes! I don't know what it is about them, but new shoes just make me feel like I'm running faster and with just a tad less effort. It's like the kid in The Sandlot that puts on a new pair of Converse shoes before taking on Hercules the dog. New shoes make me run faster, jump higher, and all those other various things real athletes can do...or not.


<------ My new shoes! Asics.

It's a good thing I got in my 30 minute run/walk today (plus 4 or 5 trips around the running store building) because I got to chow down like a fat man at a buffet tonight at my parent's house. It was Dorrito casserole night, a.k.a. Mom's surefire way to get the family together for dinner. It's good because tomorrow is a rest day on the training schedule but bad because it's my weigh day. At least if it doesn't move or go in the direction I would like, I could blame it on the Dorritos!

Friday, April 27, 2007

Ferns, calzones and one melatonin hangover...

You'd think by the time the end of the semester rolled around that I would have figured out when NOT to take melatonin. It turns out that midnight is not a good time to take it. While I managed to get out of bed and make it to work on time, it felt like I was still drugged up and drowsy. Two cups of coffee kicked the melatonin hangover but no breakfast meant I was starving by 10. I need to buy groceries. I also need to get back into that mindset where food is fuel not just food. That would probably help with the whole not skipping breakfast thing. Anywho.... plant sale today on campus! I bought some new houseplants. A fern, a red thing, and some other thing. Hopefully none of them kill my cat.

I had a breaded chicken calzone for lunch. Yum! Probably not the healthiest of choices but it filled me up. It should last me until I head off on my run/walk later. It's beautiful out and I wish I could go right now but noooooo, responsibility calls. Grrrr....

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Note to self...don't stop moving.

No treadmill last night! The sky cleared and it turned out to be a beautiful day to run in circles around my neighborhood. It was another day of running one minute and walking two minutes. I'm hoping this gradual plan of getting back into running means that I'll actually be running and not just jogging like before. I'm trying to keep my speed up at a decent pace without totally killing myself. I think as long as I recover during the two minutes of walking before I run again then I am doing things correctly. I think it's about 2.5 miles that I cover in the 30 minutes which isn't bad considering that I'm walking for 20 minutes of it.

I watched a movie later in the evening. Bad idea. I should have kept moving. My legs are so tight now. It's like from Finding Nemo, "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming." My new motto is going to be "Just keep moving. Just keep moving." The sad part is that I've been down this road before and I should have remembered that.


Oh, and the movie was highly disappointing. The Guardian failed to impress. It had potential up until the bar pick-up scene. Can anyone say Top Gun wannabe? They may as well have had the boys in uniform sing "You've lost that loving feeling" because that's all I could think about.

Kevin Costner is king - Ashton Kutcher is a joke. It was like watching Kelso from that That 70's Show struggling to be serious on the big screen for two hours. Does Kutcher only do one character? The sign of a craptastic actor? I vote yes. It's never a good sign when the minor actors that surround the main character are way more entertaining. The West Wing's Dule Hill played the token black man. That's a waste of a good actor right there. The movie probably would have been leaps and bounds better with him as the main character. Ah well, one less movie for the "To Buy" list.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Rain, Rain, Rain...

While normally I would love the opportunity to go outside and play in the rain, I wasn't much feeling like it yesterday afternoon. My schedule called for an easy 30 minute walk. That's my kind of training right there! I froze my arse off and got drenched on my walk across campus earlier in the day, so I decided I would just head to the gym and use the treadmill for my walk. It was just that, a walk. My shins were pretty sore from the day before so that was kind of annoying. They are still sore today and I'm not exactly looking forward to the run/walk thing this evening.

On a much more hilarious note...when I was writing the title for this blog I was reminded of Milli Vanilli of all things. The "Blame It On The Rain" cheesiness of the late 80s/early 90s can't be beat! I vaguely remember the two guys wearing purple pimp like suits in the video. Ok, I couldn't help it. I just wiki-ed Milli Vanilli. They won a Grammy! What? That's definitely a "What were they thinking" moment. And they have a greatest hits album from 2007! Is there no shame in the music industry? HA, proof there is not.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

So it starts...

The blogging world has finally sucked me in. It's scary to finally take the blogging plunge but it's also not surprising that I finally caved in. My mind runs in overdrive every second of everyday and maybe, just maybe, this blogging thing may help me straighten things out upstairs.

Ultimately, the purpose of Worm's Word is for me to track my journey back into the running world. It's been a while and I know it won't be as fun and exciting as it was the first time around. I have a lot more on my plate than I did two years ago. At least I can take comfort in knowing that I've been here before, slowly adding minutes and miles, and that the pain does subside and the miles do get easier and more enjoyable.

Yesterday I started an 8 week program, courtesy of Runner's World, that should ease me back into running. The program is a different approach for me. Two years ago, I started the run/walk thing on my own and slowly got up to running almost daily. I lost 30lbs., ran a 5k and a half marathon. Then I slowly, and certainly with less pain and effort, went from being an athlete to a sedentary grad student. Luckily, that 30lbs is still MIA so I'm hoping that makes things a wee bit easier on me this time around!

So, yeah, I'm back! Yesterday wasn't so bad. I ran for a minute, walked two minutes, lather, rinse, repeat. Thirty minutes later, I was exhausted, but relieved that I had finally started "running" again.