Slow Run, Take it easy

I took 2 days off to rest my knee and today was my first attempt running again. I forced myself to run slower than I've ever run and only ran 2 miles. So far my knee is feeling good so I will try another easy run either tomorrow or Monday. Oh and I got new shoes today which feel much better than my previous ones:

Soles 4 Souls 5K - Registered

Well hopefully I'll be ready by next Saturday because I just dropped off my registration for the Soles 4 Souls 5k. Oh yeah.. and hopefully my knee works then too!

Speaking of that, my knee is definitely feeling better after rest and ice. I would love to go run today, but I don't want to rush anything so it'll be at least tomorrow before I get back out there.

Eating/Smoking

Oh, yeah I guess I said this blog was also about me eating healthier and quitting smoking so I should probably post my progress on that too :)

Eating healthier was the first change I made so it's become pretty routine now that it's been almost 2 months. I buy only 100% whole wheat breads, eat more turkey, chicken and pork and less ham, hardly eat any red meat, eat less instead of gorging myself every meal, avoid fried foods except for my once a week splurge at Chick-Fil-A, drink maybe 1 coke a week (instead of 3-4 a day), drink juice, diet green tea and lots of water, take my lunch with me to work instead of getting fast food, get healthier meals when I go places where I used to eat unhealthy (the guiltless grilled chicken sandwich at Chili's is AWESOME), and probably other things I'm forgetting. The biggest area I need to improve on is fruits and vegetables. I love me some broccoli and asparagus, but I don't eat enough and the closest thing to fruit I really get is from my Flat Earth chips.

The smoking is the most recent change and is going easier than I had thought it would. I decided to quit at 1:51 PM on 8/27/2008. Since that time I've had no more than 2 a day except for when I've had alcohol. I figured I would cut it out of everyday life first since that's easier and accounts for the majority of my time. The last 3 days I've had 1 each day, at night and each night it gets more and more repulsive and I put it out before it's gone. This morning I was told my car smelled 100 times better than it used to, and hopefully I smell better too :)

I don't knee-d this!!

After my run this past Saturday I noticed my knee was hurting a little, but attributed it to the hills I had just run that I wasn't used to. The pain went away until 2 days ago when it hurt a little after my 5k practice run, but again it went away. It didn't hurt at all during my run last night, but after I was done it sure did. I iced it when I got home and then put a heating pad on it before bed, but it's still hurting this morning. I guess I won't be running for at least a couple of days so I don't do any more damage :(

5k Practice #2

Today was practice #2 of going exactly 3.1 miles to get an accurate time. Unlike yesterday I did not start off too slow and as a result I ended up taking 1:21 off yesterday's time! My 2nd practice 5k comes in at 25:44. I think I'm going to do an easy run tomorrow not paying attention to time at all, rest on Friday, then try a longer run on Saturday so 5k practice #3 won't be until next week.

Welcome

I've been using RunningAHEAD to track my runs which I will continue to do, and blogging about it on my MySpace blog. I think most of my friends on there are tired of hearing about it and I wanted to move it to something that I could access a little easier so I decided to start this blog. I will probably move all my blog entries over eventually so if this post is stuck in the middle and seems out of place, that's why.

When I moved back to Nashville on July 12th I decided to make a change that had been needed for a while, start eating healthy and getting serious about it. A little over a month ago (July 28th) I decided it would be a good idea to start running, mainly for my overall health, but also for selfish reasons like being tired of looking at flab on my belly :) What I was not expecting was to become addicted. As someone on the RA forums suggested recently the difference between a runner and a jogger is that a jogger has to convince themselves to go run, the runner looks forward to it and hates it when they can't run. If that's true then I'm definitely a runner. Having an injury or a scheduled rest day sucks and makes me look forward to the next day even more.

One other reason I wanted to run is because I knew if I got hooked it would give me more motivation to quit smoking and make it easier to do so. Last Wednesday at 1:51pm (yes I'm weird like that) I decided the smoking was going to have to go because I want to be healthier and run farther. So my trifecta is 1) eating healthier, 2) running, 3) not smoking and I plan on continuing all of those for a long, long time.

Right now my running goal is to get below 23 minutes in a 5k by the end of the year which I know I can do. I'm also thinking about training for a half marathon (probably the Country Music Marathon) as my first goal of 2009.

5k Practice #1

Today was practice 1 of going exactly 3.1 miles to get an accurate time. My first mistake was starting off too slow. My second mistake was trying to make up for that in the 2nd and 3rd miles. The last mile kicked my ass and my calf is cramping, but I made it. My first practice 5k comes in at 27:05. Not as good as I was hoping for, but I still have over a week to get that time down.