Lisa: Pre-training: Week 5, Days 2 and 3; Week 6, Day 1

1/7/06:

"Diane, it's 7:44 on the morning of Saturday, January 7th, my mom's birthday. I just got to Memory Grove, which is where we're running this morning. It took me a lot less time than I thought it would to get here, probably because of the lighter morning/weekend traffic. I left the house at 7:28, so it took me about 16 minutes. Anyway, I've got a while to wait for the other girls, so I'll keep you posted on how the run goes."

"Well, I did it. I ran this morning, but it was kind of a fiasco. I got here at about 7:45, and we were supposed to run at 8:00. I knew I had a while to wait, so I started doing my Sudoku puzzles. By eight THIRTY, no one was here except me. I don't know why I waited that long, except that I was busy doing my puzzle and also couldn't believe that when we were running at EIGHT people would sleep in, but whatever. Anyway, I started, and the first two five-minute running sessions were hideous. The third one wasn't so bad. The problem was that after the first running session, I got the feeling that my key wasn't in my shoe anymore. I didn't want to wear my huge coat, and my little jacket doesn't have any pockets, so I decided to time my five minute segments with the song lengths on my iPod, which I carried in my hand. (Coughing.) For lack of a better way to carry it, I took my car key off my keychain and put it in my shoe. Somehow, I guess it flew out while I was running. That was genius. I kept an eye on the trail on my way back since I couldn't feel the key in there anymore, but didn't see the key lying anywhere. I got all the way back to the beginning again, and checked my shoes, but my key wasn't in there. I started retracing my steps, and ran into these nice people with dogs. They said they had seen a key on the little plaque about the park right by the entrance, so I went back there and sure enough there it was--about TEN FEET away from my actual car. So, criminals, follow me running, and you'll totally get a free car with lots of sweet stuff in it. Luckily, my car was still there with all the sweet stuff still inside. I guess all's well that ends well. It's 9:11, and I'm heading home to get ready and then to go run errands for Mom's party. There you have it--half an hour behind schedule but I guess none the worse for wear."

"Memory Grove was a pretty nice place to run. It wasn't too crowded and it has a sort of paved road, most of which is not accessible to motor vehicles. It was flat but with kind of a gradual incline on the way into the canyon. I saw lots of other runners and dog walkers at the entrance to the park, and some people over on the trail that runs parallel to the paved path, but most of the time when I was running I was alone. You know, and then there are those nice key-finding elves. So, that's got to be good, right?"

1/8/06:

Sunday, Marci and I ran at the Olympus track. We went 8 times around, which makes 2 miles.

129 lbs, 28% body fat

1/10/06:

"Diane, the date is Tuesday, January 10, 2006. The time is 5:46. I'm at Liberty Park on the south side. I got up this morning for running, but accidentally snoozed! I woke up at about 5:15, hurried my butt over here, and was in the parking lot by just a few minutes after 5:30. I got a text from Sarah right around the time I got here, saying she was on her way, so I will stay here until she arrives."

"Well, Diane, it's now 6:24. Sarah showed up just a couple of minutes after I talked to you last. This week we started doing two sets of running ten minutes and then walking five minutes, for 30 minutes total. It wasn't too bad. The first five minutes actually went by really fast, so the first ten minutes almost felt like the first five minutes used to feel. We went all the way around the park and back to the cars once, but we weren't done yet, so then we went about a quarter of the way around again and then back-tracked to the cars, but we still weren't done. We kept back-tracking around to the corner and then went back to the cars. I think we did about two minutes extra walking on the whole thing, but I'm going to draw a picture when I get home so that I can figure out how far in distance that we went."

I figure we went around the park 1 3/4 times. The path around the park is supposedly 1.25 miles, so that means we went a total of 2.19 miles!

129.5 lbs, 29% body fat. I hope there's an overall downward trend, because there seems to be a lot of fluctuation up and down.