I needed a break...

So, I sit at my computers for hours on end almost every day. I have tried on several occasions to sit down and post, but everytime I start some distraction comes up. Then when I'm through with the distraction, I'm usually so sick of the computer that I have to get away from it. Therefore many posts that I have begun have just been discarded. I'm not going to let that happen today though.

I'm writing this blog post to take a bit of a break from the other work that I've been doing. October has been hectic and today has been no exception. About the moment I woke up this morning I was feeling overwhelmed. It began with some phone calls that threw more work on my plate. Then, God bless Meredith, she imed me asking if I wanted to go run at the Riverwalk. My first instinct was to say no since I had all kinds of stuff to do, but then I thought that maybe I needed to go run because I had so much stuff to do (stressful stuff at that). So I said I would go, threw on some clothes and went. While the sky was gray, it felt really good outside. We ran from the New Orleans side of the walk to Pointe West. Meredith decided to keep running on the extended part of the walk, while I realized that I was about to pee my pants due to the coffee that I had had right before. So I ran to the nearest parking lot restroom (you know where the picnic shelters are). By the time I made it back up to the walk, Meredith was almost there to meet me and we cooled down by walking the rest of the way back.

I was pleased with the amount that I was able to run this morning. I'm also still glad that I decided to go. Shortly after I got back, I received some more phone calls that made the day a little more stressful. I think the exercise has helped me to handle it better.

Anyway, keep running, endorphines are your friends :-)

Hey! I put some new shoes on and suddenly everything's right ...

What a difference new shoes make! I bought some new Nike Max Air running shoes with shock absorbers (on sale at Foot Locker, plus my 20% coupon from a McDonald's monopoly prize piece) on Saturday afternoon and put them on when I got into the car. I drove over to Shandon, and BAM! -- I ran 3.2 miles. No kidding. I had my pedometer on me, and started running/bouncing along (thanks to the shock absorbers) and somehow ran two miles fine. I decided to push myself a little more, and got to 2.5 miles, and still was recovering fine. So then, I said "What the heck, let me do a 5k!" And I did.

Pat me on the back next time you see me, thank you very much. ;-)

So, Basically, I Run on Mondays...

How sad is it that for the last THREE WEEKS, I have only run on Mondays! It's like I get off to a great start with quite high expectations for myself and then crash and burn somewhere along the way! Of course, now that we are finally finished with Searching For God Knows What I am sure I will have TONS more time for running! Ha! Kidding! Pray for me... and I'll pray for you... we'll get back in the groove THIS WEEK! :) Happy running, GAMECOCK GIRLS! On another note, did our football team kick some Wildcat patoot tonight or what?! (Not that I wasn't just a tad nervous on more than one occasion! We are, after all, Gamecocks... a 15 point lead essentially means nothing until the final whistle blows!) GO COCKS! Run, April, Run!

Running during my lunch break

Just got back from running during my lunch break. Um ... can I say, it's hot outside? And I basically had to give myself a sponge bath afterwards (in my cool bathroom in my cool office) because I'm dripping. I checked the map -- I went from the health center to the horseshoe, passed Capstone until Laurens Street, looped around Senate Street until I reached the statehouse and then back to the horseshoe. Total, it was a little over 2 miles. Woo! My forehead is still a little red/pink from being exerting myself, and I'm definitely using my entire lunch hour (with my door closed) to recuperate. But I feel great now. It was a great stress relief to have time to run around campus, pretty much without traffic.