Rookie on the Run

  San Diego Rocks! I have great news! The San Diego Rock 'n' Roll is offering the  Half Marathon option!!     and I am registered to run it!   That's right, before it has even been "officially" announced, the Competitor Group showed up at our first running group meeting and gave us all the chance to sign up.  They were even offering a free T-shirt for signing up.  I love free T-shirts.  How could I resist?  After all, I've been hoping for the Half option ever since I crossed the Full marathon finish line last May. Now on to other things... Pigeon Pose Guy, Part II In my last post, I mentioned the trainer at my new gym who said he likes my Pigeon Pose.  It gets even better... I ran into him again at the gym on Friday and he noticed my Chi Running book.  Mr. Pigeon Pose gave me a double "thumbs up" and performed the happy dance when he saw my book.  He's a very animated person, I'm discovering. We s...

My New Gym In my last post, I mentioned that I was going to check out a new gym. For $10 per month and no commitment, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was impressed! The gym is large, clean, filled with new equipment, and not filled with big egos. The staff is friendly and didn't try to pressure me into upgrading my membership to one of the more costly options. There are plenty of free weights, weight machines, and lots of cardio machines! At my old gym, there were too many grunting, sweaty, guys with egos larger than their overworked biceps.  The staff & trainers wouldn't give you the time of day unless you had an appointment... or if they were trying to get me to recruit my friends and family.  There were times when I'd notice at least three or four broken machines.  While the group instructors at my old gym were great, the rest of the gym wasn't worth the money they took out of my account each month. I had a great workout last night and can't...

Note: If you haven't read Part I of this, you might want to go back one post.  Here, I'll even save you the trouble of having to click around too much to get there.  Just click here:  Part I  I left off on my last post explaining what I had been learning about running barefoot as opposed to running with shoes.  I tried to leave you guessing regarding what I was going to do with the information... but I'm sure you've figured it out.  And if we're Facebook friends, you probably already know. Making Contact The more I read about barefoot running, the more I just wanted to get out there and try it.  I have always enjoyed being barefoot and I love to feel the ground under my feet (unless I'm in my boys' bathroom... then I pretty much have to put on some of those biohazard footies prior to entry). So the other day, I was a good cross-trainer and went on a bike ride.  After that, I decided to go on very short, one-mile run.  I headed out ...

I don't know where to start!  Since my last post, I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking.  If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you know that since I started this venture into the world of running less than a year ago, I have spent much of my time trying to recover from one injury or another.  Looking back, I can almost trace each of my injuries according to the type of shoe I was wearing at the time. Here's my shoe/injury time line: January 2009- Asics GT-2140:   My first pair of shoes as I started training for my marathon.  I bought these based on "expert" evaluation of my running.  I was told I overpronate so I need stability shoes.  Less than three months later, I exchanged them due to sharp pain in both ankles and the start of pain in my right knee. March 2009- Asics Kayano15:   My second pair of running shoes.  I exchanged the first pair for these based on the suggestion that I must need more cushion a...

I Lied Well, not intentionally... I miscalculated .  I thought my cute pink shoes were coming today but they are actually scheduled to arrive tomorrow.  I'm waiting, Mr. UPS... get your brown-clad fanny to my house! My iPod has a Sense of Humor Seriously.  Sometimes I think it has a mind of its own.  For example, it had been raining early this morning.  When I started out on my run, however, the sun was shining between the scattered clouds.  The first song that popped up on my iPod was "Walking on the Sun" by Smash Mouth. A few songs later, the sun was still holding its own when Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" came on.  I thought to myself, "Well, I might be a fool but at least it's not in the rain.  Yet."  Two songs later, Miley Cyrus' song, "The Climb" came on... just as I was making my way up a hill.  Guess what happened not long after "Who'll Stop the Rain?" by CCR came on.  Yep!  It started raining!   ...

Today's Run Didn't happen.  I was so looking forward to getting up and running this morning.  Instead, I woke up several times in the night with a headache (sinus related, I'm sure).  The headache stuck with me until mid-morning so the run was just not meant to happen. The good news is, I feel less stuffy, my headache is gone, and my heel feels even more ready for a run.  So, let's hear it for tomorrow! Adventures in Shoe Shopping I mentioned in my last blog that I returned my new Saucony Grid Fusion 2 shoes.  I love my current pair of Saucony shoes so I thought I'd give these a try.  I'm sure they are great for some people but they were lacking in cushion and flexibility for me.  I was able to place an exchange and send them back to onlineshoes.com free of shipping charges... even though I had run in them! I exchanged the Saucony for these: Ryka Revive Why Ryka?  My husband used to work for Jazzercise and this is the brand the c...