Return of the Mile Tracker!

Why is exercise always the first thing to go?

You know how it is - running/walking/team sports/swimming/whatever-it-is-you-do-to-get-the-ol'-heart-pumping makes you feel soooo good. You think, "I'm totally loving this and I'm going to do this every day and why didn't I change my life sooner?"

And then you buy a house and paint every night and move in and try to unpack and school ends and friends come over and there's important summertime fun to be had...

...and suddenly you realize you can count on one hand the number of times you've worked out in the past two three four months.

Fortunately, I've already discovered that the best way to return to a regular exercise schedule is FEAR. I signed up awhile ago for the TC-10, a 10-mile race at the beginning of October. Easy, I thought. I used to run 10 miles every Saturday - I'll train up through the summer and I'll be ready no problem.

See above for how successful I've been.

However, time marches on, and as the end of August approaches, I'm starting to feel very nervous. A handful of 3-mile runs is not going to get me up to speed (heh). I've slowly worked up the past couple of weeks, and yesterday I ran 6 miles for the first time since April, whoop!

It helped that I had these:

Sweet, yes? Don't know if you've seen all the fancy, need-to-wear-sunglasses running shoes that are popping up everywhere, but I've totally been obsessing over them for awhile now. Our new house happens to have a running store just around the corner (can I say again how much I love living here??) so we stopped in for a quick try-on yesterday and I came home with these.

Of course, I immediately headed out and totally kicked that 6 miles in the boo-tay. Yep, I'd say these babies are gonna give me exactly what I need for Operation: The-Race-Is-Only-How-Many-Weeks-Away??