Running Fail! Soccer Win!

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...

That is my new excuse for the epic fail that is my plan to run every day in November and December. It turns out that my body has alternative ideas - currently, its a bad knee. Its new and painful and is only now fading 5 days after my first consecutive run days in months.

I believe the pain and the running are connected - it is the knee after all (and a 43 year old knee at that). For those keeping track, it is the right knee and it hurts to hinge, unhinge or put too much weight on it. I don't miss the irony that I need to run to lose weight and, well the point is there for the getting...

On the brighter side, the Pink Panthers have run off quite a streak since the break and the B-division of U8 Girls in the South Bay Youth Soccer league (Campbell area) is now ours for the taking :) .

One of the dad's on the team (the voice you hear in the background) has taped most of our games and has edited out the scoring clips, so I am able to post Kate's two goals. In watching all of them (yes, I have that kind of time), I also noted another 3-4 assists and even more plays where she was within a touch or two of one our goals. Bigggg change for the girl that last year watched ball after ball go right past her as she critiqued the other team's uniforms or considered what the snack would be at the end of the game.

Enjoy!

Kate's 1st Goal



Kate's 2nd Goal

Finishing Strong!

So, in the 2 months since running Alcatraz I have gotten in maybe 3-4 workouts - a couple runs, a bike ride, no swimming -- sad, sad, sad.

My solution to this slackery is, as usual, to go waaay overboard. Rather than try to ease back in, I am choosing to jump in with both feet, literally. From November 1 to January 1, I will be running every day.

The reason to make it an every day thing is to leave no room for saying "I'll get to it tomorrow..." - which is the phrase/attitude that keeps me on the sidelines day after day. Committing to every day means not putting off 'till tomorrow what must be done today AND tomorrow.

The Fine Print
Initially, this post was going to be written on November 1 - announcing the great undertaking. But I ran in the rain that day and picked up quite the chest cold and skipped the next 6 days. Poor start, no question, but not an ending to this deal.

Back on it as of yesterday - back to back two mile warm-up runs and stretches out at the Campbell Community Center track (CCC). Both under 21 minutes (pretty sad, I realize, but need to begin somewhere).

Goals:

• 62 straight days of running (already missed some of them). I figure 80% of the goal is a winner
• Drop the mile time back down into the 9's, possibly down into the 8's
• Run the Resolution Run in 44 minutes
• Pick up the belt loop I've lost over the last couple of months since Alcatraz
• Write often and poorly about the attempt
  

Progress:

• 3 days in (2 in a row)
• No movement on the belt loops
• Back and hammie stretching underway
• Blogging underway as well
  

I'll be reporting back and using this as a reason to blog about more than running and biking and swimming. Oddly enough running and writing have a very strong common bond in my mind - I hate writing/running, but love having written/run. We'll just have to see if forcing both of these for a couple months makes at least one of them come easier.