Well, I didn't get out and run early in the morning like I'd wanted to, but instead I made sure to run before Jon and I got in the car to come back to Cincy. I knew that if I waited to run until we got back to Athens that I wouldn't run at all. So, I left a napping Jon post-Easter dinner and went for my 30-minute jog.
I love jogging in Anderson in the spring. It's a suburb of Cincinnati and everything in green and alive and you can see families out and about enjoying the pretty weather. As always, the first 10 minutes of the jog were really rough. I was afraid that the whole jog was going to be like that after my half-week of terrible eating. Thankfully, the icky feeling passed and I settled into a rhythm. I don't have a heart rate monitor (I really want to get the Garmin 305, I think), but I felt like my breathing was more even and less ragged than at the beginning.
For the first half of my run, I ran from my mom's house to the local park down the street, and from there I veered off the path and jogged over to the middle school track, the site of my only organized track experience. I remember "running" track there in the 8th grade and being so proud the day I ran a whole mile without stopping. Look at me now. I did 2 miles on the track and thought about how I'm in better shape (and am almost smaller) than I was in middle school. Amazing.
After hitting the 30 minute mark, I kept pushing myself another 5 minutes. I'd hit my stride and it didn't seem too difficult to keep pushing on and I ended up eeking out a 60-minute non-stop run. It felt amazing. I can't believe I've gotten to a point where I actually can say that.
Anyways, I managed to get my big, angry red number down to -5.5, so hopefully I'll run again tonight (the weather here is GORGEOUS) and get it down some more. I've already written off this week as a no-loss week, but I'll be happy if I maintain after all this food shenanigans. Lesson to self: Waffle House + Beer + Big Family Holiday = bad idea.
