Hello from Outer Space

Hi! No, I'm not dead. :) I had a two week vacation at the beginning of the month where my internet was spotty (read: my parents have dial up), and then rushed back to Berkeley to prep for a research trip that I'm leaving for this morning. I'll be in Independence, MO for a week at the Truman library, researching health insurance proposals and the conservative coalition in Congress (those are for two separate projects). So, I have been running but I have not been blogging!

My basic place in running is that I totally hit a mental (and running!) wall when I got to the week where one suddenly jumps from five minutes of running to eight to twenty all over the course of three days! What?! It seemed crazy, especially since the plan so far had really been guiding me through running and, even though some runs were hard, there was nothing that I didn't feel like I could accomplish. My mom started running about five years ago, and she gave me a great pep talk, saying that I should favor running at my own pace over trying to stick to a plan and then giving up because it is too hard. :) When she started running, she didn't have an interval plan, but she did have different "benchmarks" along the trail that she would get comfortable with before increasing her distance. She was saying that for some, it might take a month before she really felt comfortable to move on...certainly not just one day!

So, basically I am currently doing the 5/3/5/3/5 run until I feel comfortable with it. After that, I will probably move on to either 8/5/8 or 5/3/8/3/5, or maybe alternate between those. That 5/3/5/3/5 has been kicking my butt, in part I think because I've been traveling and playing catch up on work, and so not getting out every day (I would say it's been about 3-4 days per week as opposed to 5-6 when I'm in Berkeley on a regular schedule). Anyway, long and short of it is, don't be discouraged if you start a plan and its schedule doesn't turn out to be your schedule! As my mom says, the important thing is just to be out there and be active, and I'm accomplishing that either way. :-D

p.s. I also went running on a treadmill for the first time during this project the other day, because a friend was going to the gym and I thought it would be good motivation to go. :) Augh! In some ways it was easier (the running part), but I definitely felt like I was going to fall off the whole time! I also think I spend the whole time starting at the moving parts (to make sure I didn't fall off) and thus felt like the room was spinning when I "disembarked". I think I will stick to road running unless it is raining or something!