New Strategy

Here's my new tack - act like I'm a runner. Play the part. Dress the part. Be the road. (What?) I'm setting new goals for myself and putting them on the refrigerator where I can see them. Short-term goals, like what I want to accomplish by the end of this week, not the end of next month.

Since I've been lazy - no...wait...I take that back. I've not been lazy, just busy doing other things. I've been doing physical labor, just not running as much as I'm supposed to. Since I've not been running, I'm going to have to start over, kind of. I haven't lost all the ground I've gained, but surely some of it, so I'll scale back my expectations to something a little more realistic so that I don't get overly discouraged.

Today I decided to try running before noon. I'm not a morning person by any means, but once I'm up, I'm up. I'm not one of those people who stumble around with a gloomy face, grunting when I'm asked a question. No...when I'm up, my mouth is open. Big shock, huh? It used to drive my girls NUTS when we were all in the bathroom getting ready for work or school. Neither one of them is a morning person.

"Mom! How can you always be in such a good mood???" I asked them if they'd rather I always be in a bad one. But yeah, I'm sure it was annoying to them when I was trying to carry on a full-fledged conversation at 6:30 in the morning.

Anyway ... it was in the 40s and windy here this morning, so I decided I would do my running on the newly-repaired treadmill in the cool basement. That would be a little easier on me anyway and maybe I could do more. At 4.6 mph, I ran for nine minutes, while watching I Love Lucy on TVLand. It was tough, and I was drenched with sweat (steroids again?), as well as rather winded, but I made it. I walked two minutes, then started running again. I wanted to quit at three minutes, but persisted until I'd finished seven.

At that point, I could barely breathe and my chest was burning. My hair was soaked with sweat, my face felt like it was going to explode, and sweat was running down my legs. (Yes, it was sweat. LOL.) I walked a little bit more and decided to call it a day. I'd done more than I really felt like doing and tomorrow, I'll attempt to do even more.

At least I'm doing something, and I've got a plan. One way or another, I'll get back on track.

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