Monday, January 30, 2012

Ima change what you call rage

Tear this motherfuckin roof off like two dogs caged.  - eminem

I did 2 today, my first 100 yards fueled by the workdays rage, but then reality set in and I got winded.  Cleared my head though. 

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Entertainment tonight

I have no enlightening musical quotes this evening because I was watching tv during my hamster wheel workout tonight at the gym.  I learned all about Seal and Heidi Klum's tragic breakup and the Oscar battle between George and Brad.  I did 2 and 1 inclines and walked some when it felt like it, keeping close eye on the door for bf to ensure that I would be running when he came in.  After 2 miles I went and did some core strength training.  Because that's what real workout people do.  It was a phase 2, if you will.  I've been far too lazy lately on my workouts but I've decided that what I'm doing is resting up before the big training ramp up for Montreal. 

I'll build a fence, but how will I lock the gate?

So today is the day I start enjoying the comforts of the great indoors for my workouts.  First things first - I put my new lock in my gym bag and almost drop it on my old lock that was sitting right on top.  I immediately think of the daily show where Stewart made fun of John McCain for being old by having a puppet McCain on the show.  The puppet McCain complained about the illegal aliens who were breaking into his house and hiding the remote in the freezer.  Puppet McCain suggested he was going to build a fence around his remote.  Hmmm - sounds like the same people at work here.  Not sure if these illegal immigrants came north from Cleveland??? 

Anyway - I get to the gym ready to initiate my membership, but there isn't anyone who works there.  So I figure that I'll work out and then do it.  But there isn't anyone there after my workout either.  It's not a 24 hour club, so someone had to unlock the building, but no one is to be found.  Perhaps they figure that only people who belong will show up before 8AM and so they don't actually need an employee until later in the day.  Weird.  So I ran a couple miles on the treadmill with a strange interval pattern - like the kind of run you would go on if you were being chased (either by a overzealous fictional health club employee or a northbound migrant looking to wreak psychological havoc by hiding basic items).  Or like someone sprinting to catch up with his sanity.  Either way - nobody caught nothing.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

"I-heeaih had a feeling that I belonged

I-heeaih had a feelin I could be someone, be someone." - that's some vintage Tracy Chapman today from a new playlist bf made for me.  I hoped I could hang with the Janathon crowd but alas, it was too much.  I never made it out on Thurs, I got home around midnight.  So Friday was all too easy to let go, and then Saturday with it.  I have slept a lot though, yay me!  And I'm back in the saddle today with a relaxing 2 mile jog. 

99 problems but a lock aint one

Strangely, that is what was going through my head as I started my run today.  The ironic part is that the only reason that I ran outside was that I couldn't find my lock so I could go to the gym. The other strange part is that I never listen to Jay-Z.

So I ran a couple miles today.  A new route led me to a dead-end street I'd never been on before.  Dead end streets really kill the momentum of a run - it's like running on a treadmill without the benefits of climate control.  Not a great run, but it counts.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Half Marathon, Half Hilarity

There were no prerace McDonald's snack wraps waiting outside the corral, but there was other prerace hijinks. Beautiful, soft gentle pre dawn morning with me picking up gf for boring prerace plan of oatmeal, bagel, coffee, bottled water, sports drinks. Both were in our running costumes ready to roll right through and get right to it with focused minds, but we were both victims of mistaken identity. An undercover fashion policeman blows his cover and shouts to me "you must really like red." Admittedly I was dressed a bit like a ketchup bottle, but I smelled danger in his sarcasm, obviously fishing to see if I he had uncovered my true identity as either a rabid communist trying to bring back the USSR one monochromatic day at a time or if not that, then naturally super under cover gang bangin blood. In either case, it drew attention to both of us. Enough to where as gf was sitting down, another gentleman asked if she was in fact running the marathon morning. Sweet demure gf affirmed that she was running that morning. He asks what she will run the marathon in.

I am overhearing this conversation as I am getting my coffee and start smiling at where this verbal ride could go. GF drops on the old man that she plans on running the race in 2 hours, 30 minutes. The proverbial gasp of energy that swooshed like a hurricane upon hearing that gf was going to run the FULL marathon in world class fashion was unmistakable. Now I can't get the cream cheese on my bagel fast enough, so I don't miss this show. Eventually gf realizes that he is wildly impressed of her ho hum, just short of cheetah fast 2 hours 30 min full marathon and now begins sharing a secret he only shares with those people fast enough to be worthy of his affiliation. Come to find out that is family too has a lineage of Olympic quality marathon prowess. Poor gf was in too deep, and couldn't climb out of this ditch and just made his day by letting him have the story his life. He was left with in fact, he had yet again been blessed by the presence of super human long distance speed.

Listening to these two burners share their love for running fast was awesome. I was so jealous.

GF did run a great race improving her last time significantly and even drank a pre race COKE (regular coke) which was amazing to me but that's why I am not world class. I posted a 1:53:21. Hold your applause.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

18 degrees and 3 beers

Either would have been enough

Only just a dream

I am on a weekend trip with my sisters to Jerome.  We are in the kitchen of our condo and they are teasing me about how much I eat.  I am getting agitated and defending myself.  M makes a particularly snide comment and i grab her bowl of tuna salad and throw it across the room.  "Again with the tuna salad?" she asks, because i have thrown her tuna salad twice before when angry.  Then my beautiful K chimes in, "Come on, mom, you can't even make it through a shower without having a snack." I am so wounded by this betrayal, i scream at the top of my lungs, my vocal chords straining, "THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH EATING WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  I storm out of the kitchen back to the bedroom, and i deliberately refrain from slamming the door because I know this story will be told over and over in exaggerated tales, and i need this one fact in my favor so i can say in my defense that i didn't slam the door.  I am rummaging through my drawer hoping i brought a xanax, debating whether i should take one and then realizing that after losing it like that i definitely need one.  And then my phone is ringing and its my J calling to ask if i will drive him to the bus stop and i am awake. 

I am still exhausted from this dream.  Today is going to be tough to exercise because I'm in meetings until 1030pm and i didn't go this morning before work.  I was too busy shouting down my demons. 

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Tough week for janathon

Because I have a work conference that entails very long days.  This morning, for example, in a display of extreme fortitude and commitment, I bundled up and did a 2 mi run/walk before work.  This is extraordinary because a) I just did a half marathon and would normally take this week and several more off from running entirely, b) it was freezing outside and c) I never get up earlier than I have to.  Ever. 

MLK make up day

Run #4.  I missed my Sunday run.  Perhaps it was the distraction of the Arizona 1/2 marathon taking place three times zones away.  No matter - it's gone.  So then I missed the Monday run.  Perhaps it was the holiday that is not celebrated in Canada and may or may not be celebrated in the state of my birth.  But this run is not gone.  (The problem with you people who run everyday is you can't make up the runs you miss.  No problem here.)

So - today was the Monday run.  Short and fast - for 2 reasons: 1) All of my previous race prep involved running slowly for slightly longer distances.  And then I am surprised when I run slowly during the race.  And 2) It is #*$& cold.  I broke up with my last gym and haven't quite made it to my new rebound gym that I met on the internet (groupon - looks like a short term relationship), so it's all outdoors right now.  Not good.

Positive from today - unlike my first try at short and fast, this run did not end in dry heaves.  Negative - I'm not happy with the playlist I started for Montreal.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Amazed

At how good I felt today.  Legs tight but that's it.  I walked a mile with fat dog to get my janathon in.  I'm only halfway.  Sigh. 

Sunday, January 15, 2012

"I could wait on you forever"

Yes that's Justin Bieber for you folks.  It's also likely what bf was thinking as he waited for me to cross the finish line this morning.  My musical strategy today was to simply put my iPod on shuffle, so I got some stuff not on my normal rotation, thus the Biebs.  I think the best distraction from pain for me is listening to songs that remind me of other people, and that way I can dedicate time to them.  But today I found myself inadvertently dedicating time to Rihanna and Chris Brown. 

Anyhoo, the race went well, better than expected actually, although I thought I might weep when it started raining a little as we were parking.  I started taking short walk breaks after 3 miles, pursuant to my pain avoidance strategy.  I felt pretty good even up to mile 8, which is about where I got real sad in Vegas. 

At mile 10, I actually felt optimistic, which is an entirely new experience for me at that point in a race.  I had figured that by then I would finish in under 3 no matter what I did.  I did struggle through miles 10-13 undoubtedly, both running and walking, but I felt so much better than Vegas it was crazy.  And, based on my time benchmarks, I actually increased my pace miles 10-13 over 6-10.  Up to 6, I was keeping a 12:30 pace.  At 10 it had gone up to 13:38 but by finish it was back down to 13:26.  There was a lovely 2 mile downhill at 10 that certainly made it easier!  My finish time was 2:51, about 13 min pace overall, and I'm happy with that given my lack of training and especially my poor showing in Vegas!!

Now I'm laying in bed with a bad case of hiccups.  I'm really glad I tackled this one despite my misgivings. 

On to Montreal!




Saturday, January 14, 2012

Race strategy: Pain Avoidance

That's my strategy for tomorrow, an event for which I am most woefully unprepared.  I was unprepared for Vegas, but this is indeed woeful.  So, I will walk when I want to and jog slowly otherwise and take all measures necessary to ensure that I am not as miserable after the run as I was after Vegas.  A 13 mile stroll in the AZ sunshine, if you will.  And it will be lovely. 

Instead of quoting other artists today, bf and I collaborated on a rap for the occasion.  Put a beat to it:

Ain't feeling no pain
No I ain't insane
Like Saddam Hussain
I've got to regain
My competitive vein
Without which I'm sayin
There ain't no gain
Gonna step outta the rain
In which I have lain
Don't need a cane
I'll say it again
Ain't feeling no pain
No I'm not gonna strain
My body insane
To walk victory lane
Uh.
**Should add that after walking for 2 hours at the expo, I also walked a mile for janathon. 

Friday, January 13, 2012

Juneathon is for shit

"The giving up is the hardest part." - Jon Mayer

Actually, giving up on this shit would be quite easy.  A lot easier than doing this every single damn day.  I did 2 on the indoor track at the gym this evening.  And i was none too happy about it.  Going to get my stuff for the half marathon Sunday now.  Tomorrow will be a walk since I need to be well rested!!! 

No way I'm running today

Absolutely no way I'm running today without this blog.  But the blog exists and therefore so does run #3 of 2012.  I woke up this moring to 25 degree weather and snow.  Not ideal conditions, but a good excuse to have a short run.  I put on my running pants and set out to run.  Thankfully I avoided the common pitfall of confusing pants and underwear and so I didn't have any wardrobe problems.

I ran for a bit but when I turned South I realized just how much my neighborhood slopes down toward the lake.  I had the thought that if I slip I would slide all the way into Lake Ontario.  No matter that I would have had to cross Queen street and zip around a couple of buildings on my ass-bobsled, it seemed like a real possibility at the time.  So I started taking short choppy steps.  Which made me go faster.  Which made me take shorter choppier and faster steps.  Now I thought I wouldn't be going in the lake on my ass-bobsled, I would be going in head over heels like a cartoon avalanche.  Then I turned West and all was fine. 

Much like my friend - I also have a two part workout.  After the endurance portion (running), I do some agility drills (Mario Kart).  Go Yoshi go.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

I'm tapering, people!!!

So I actually went to the gym tonight, and therefore anything that follows qualifies as Janathon, got it??  Because it happened at the GYM.  So, I got there late because I was hauling my kids around town, cause that's just what I do.  And then I roamed around a little looking for bf, and then we chatted for a bit cause he was inbetween his weights session and his running session.  Yeah.  He has two sessions.  So then I spent some time debating the exact variety of workout I would endure this evening.  Ellipticals are just yuck, and I couldn't seem to get my head around running on the indoor track.  Bikes are just for wimps.  So, I got on the hamster wheel and I ran for .1 miles.  That's POINT ONE.  But hey it was at a 2 incline.  And I realized that it's just not happening for me tonight.  So I walked for exactly 25 minutes, said time being determined by the length of the new 30 Rock episode on the tv. I walked whilst bf on the treadmill next to me did inclines and intervals and dips and in general made me feel like a sloth.  So I went to get something to eat.

Fake Press Conferences and the .1 mile people

As my intermittent training sputters on in pursuit of a half ass performance in the half marathon this Sunday in the Valley of the Sun, my mind is already wandering to my kick ass mental mind boosters. Everytime I run a race, I do dedicate each mile to someone important in my life. This is usually pretty effective, heartwarming, soup for the soul while staving off the inevitable proverbial lava creep of pain created by long runs. For a while anyway, this is effective. Sadly for the underprepared like me, those hopeful, sentimental mental journeys eventually come to a fiery death in the deserted stretches of the "race." Yes I just added quoted myself, a new low, but I digress. Instead, I have to resort to other well thought out strategies to get me through.

One of the things I implemented with modest success is holding fake press conferences in my mind. Rather than get taken aback by the always annnoying press up in my face wanting to get to the bottom of the mysteries of my athletic prowess, I prepare early. One of my life terrors is being typecast as just a speed demon. To combat that stamp, I relentlessly craft some quick witted responses to the fake press in my mind. I figure that a cloak of wit might hopefully deflect overattention from both my adorous fans and my odorous smell. So if asked, why are you crying upon finishing such an incredible, inspiring run? I can say, its just the bugs that hit my eyeballs all race long during my lightening stretches when I jump straight to turbo mode simply as a crowd pleaser. I like to consider myself kind of an eagle scout of fake press conferences.

But then I get to the final .1 mile. By then, the press has just left to go scramble and meet the demands of the fake people who can't also get enough of my 3.2 points per game high school basketball scoring avalanche, and I return to those that are real and that mean so much to me in my life. It's those women in my life who's spirits flood back to me to run that last .1 mile with me and and IPOD Eminem. I am forever grateful for these beautiful women of all ages in my life today. They deserve the .1 mile. Usually.

P.S. yeah, so GO USA (maybe except Niagara Falls, our side kinda sucks)

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

A close call

Well we had plans to do yoga tonite but hunger intervened, and then we were further victimized by a bottle of wine.  But, as a last desperate attempt to meet janathon standards, we walked a brisk mile with fat dog, with the last quarter mile a speed race instigated by bf.  Fortunately fat dog and I thwarted him at the turn and finished victorious, heart rates racing as in the best of janathon workouts.  Alas, we all emerged victorious. 

Running at night in Canada

Last year, after the Vegas run I took 100 days off from any running.  And then to make sure that I didn't mess that up, I took another month (or 2) to rest up.  This year is going to be different.  I ran on Monday night and then again tonight.  I set out to run 4 miles and about 1 mile in I started to think about how badly it was going.  But then I reached my turnaround point and everything got better.  Perhaps it was because the midpoint of my run was Canadian Tire - and I started thinking about what a terrible store it is and it took my mind off of how crappy my run was going. 
Canadian Tire is like the communist store in Moscow in 1982 - if you want to buy drill bits, a hockey stick, and a box of chocolate chip cookies, you can get them all at Canadian Tire - you'll just be disappointed that they all suck.  To top it off, our Canadian Tire also has a Service Ontario inside of it where you can renew your driver's license, get your health card for all-you-can-take-health-care, or report any suspect behaviour (that's right, behaviour) of any of your comrades.
Anyway - with that to think about I finished my run.  I got to my last turn and thought that it didn't look right and so I kept going.  Turns out I had already gone too far.  So I ran 4 + a little.  I'm so far ahead of the game.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

If you're listening, this is how much it hurts

That's some vintage John Mayer for you this brisk Arizona night.  That's right, I said NIGHT.   I intended to go for a run straight after work, but as it turns out, I completely forgot to pick up the boy from practice and arrived 20 minutes late.  The subsequent guilt caused me to cook dinner for the kidlets prior to my run (and yes, I make a mean grilled cheese sandwich).  Subsequent sista drama created yet another delay.  But, I did get out there and do 3.5 in the dark and cold, and as the imaginary readers of this blog know, dark and cold are two of my nemiseses (and I do have many when it comes to running!).  That's the thing about Janathon - its never IF you'll go, its only how and when.  How much did it hurt?  Not much tonight, folks.  It was a pretty darn good one. Pace felt strong and in my new Hurricanes it was like running on two little clouds.  My lungs burned a little but I'm not sure if it was due to my lightening speed or the frigid 60F degree night.  I think the lung burn probably slowed me down, and I'm adding that to my official excuse list for my poor showing in Vegas, which, to summarize consists of: 
1.  Cold
2.  Dark
3.  Wind
4.  lung burn
5.  Old shoes
6.  Contaminated water given on the course
7.  Distraction of bf eating a McDonalds snack wrap while waiting for race to start
8.  Having to pee at mile 3
9.  eating a krispy kreme for breakfast

Monday, January 9, 2012

A really grumpy one

I can't describe how much I didn't want to go today. Even after I got to the gym at my lunch hour and even after I changed it was all I could do to drag myself to a machine. It didn't help that I had forgotten my iPod and headphones so I had no entertainment. Also I forgot a ponytail holder and my hair was all down in my face. I did 15 min on the elliptical and it was all I could bear, so I got on the treadmill and did 15 slow minutes at incline. So 30 min total, which I think meets the criteria of Janathon. And, I was able to get back to work without totally screwing up my hair.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

5 mi hike

Today bf and I took advantage of the gorgeous weather and did a hike in the mountains near my casa with fat dog. Then I got some new Sauconys for the half marathon we are doing next weekend, which I really am not prepared for, but which I will hopefully have less foot pain after than I had in Vegas.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body

I mentioned to bf yesterday that I am going to do yoga today.  I don't know how anyone can be successful at this Janathon thing without mixing it up.  I mean, running for 30-days straight??  Ugh!  And yoga is so good for strength training and flexibility and overall zen.  So as I was saying, in response bf sent me this article.  Presumably to help me feel good about my choice.
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: January 5, 2012
On a cold Saturday in early 2009, Glenn Black, a yoga teacher of nearly four decades, whose devoted clientele includes a number of celebrities and prominent gurus, was giving a master class at Sankalpah Yoga in Manhattan. Black is, in many ways, a classic yogi: he studied in Pune, India, at the institute founded by the legendary B. K. S. Iyengar, and spent years in solitude and meditation. He now lives in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and often teaches at the nearby Omega Institute, a New Age emporium spread over nearly 200 acres of woods and gardens. He is known for his rigor and his down-to-earth style. But this was not why I sought him out: Black, I’d been told, was the person to speak with if you wanted to know not about the virtues of yoga but rather about the damage it could do. Many of his regular clients came to him for bodywork or rehabilitation following yoga injuries. This was the situation I found myself in. In my 30s, I had somehow managed to rupture a disk in my lower back and found I could prevent bouts of pain with a selection of yoga postures and abdominal exercises. Then, in 2007, while doing the extended-side-angle pose, a posture hailed as a cure for many diseases, my back gave way. With it went my belief, naïve in retrospect, that yoga was a source only of healing and never harm.
At Sankalpah Yoga, the room was packed; roughly half the students were said to be teachers themselves. Black walked around the room, joking and talking. “Is this yoga?” he asked as we sweated through a pose that seemed to demand superhuman endurance. “It is if you’re paying attention.” His approach was almost free-form: he made us hold poses for a long time but taught no inversions and few classical postures. Throughout the class, he urged us to pay attention to the thresholds of pain. “I make it as hard as possible,” he told the group. “It’s up to you to make it easy on yourself.” He drove his point home with a cautionary tale. In India, he recalled, a yogi came to study at Iyengar’s school and threw himself into a spinal twist. Black said he watched in disbelief as three of the man’s ribs gave way — pop, pop, pop.
After class, I asked Black about his approach to teaching yoga — the emphasis on holding only a few simple poses, the absence of common inversions like headstands and shoulder stands. He gave me the kind of answer you’d expect from any yoga teacher: that awareness is more important than rushing through a series of postures just to say you’d done them. But then he said something more radical. Black has come to believe that “the vast majority of people” should give up yoga altogether. It’s simply too likely to cause harm.
Not just students but celebrated teachers too, Black said, injure themselves in droves because most have underlying physical weaknesses or problems that make serious injury all but inevitable. Instead of doing yoga, “they need to be doing a specific range of motions for articulation, for organ condition,” he said, to strengthen weak parts of the body. “Yoga is for people in good physical condition. Or it can be used therapeutically. It’s controversial to say, but it really shouldn’t be used for a general class.”
Black seemingly reconciles the dangers of yoga with his own teaching of it by working hard at knowing when a student “shouldn’t do something — the shoulder stand, the headstand or putting any weight on the cervical vertebrae.” Though he studied with Shmuel Tatz, a legendary Manhattan-based physical therapist who devised a method of massage and alignment for actors and dancers, he acknowledges that he has no formal training for determining which poses are good for a student and which may be problematic. What he does have, he says, is “a ton of experience.”
“To come to New York and do a class with people who have many problems and say, ‘O.K., we’re going to do this sequence of poses today’ — it just doesn’t work.”
According to Black, a number of factors have converged to heighten the risk of practicing yoga. The biggest is the demographic shift in those who study it. Indian practitioners of yoga typically squatted and sat cross-legged in daily life, and yoga poses, or asanas, were an outgrowth of these postures. Now urbanites who sit in chairs all day walk into a studio a couple of times a week and strain to twist themselves into ever-more-difficult postures despite their lack of flexibility and other physical problems. Many come to yoga as a gentle alternative to vigorous sports or for rehabilitation for injuries. But yoga’s exploding popularity — the number of Americans doing yoga has risen from about 4 million in 2001 to what some estimate to be as many as 20 million in 2011 — means that there is now an abundance of studios where many teachers lack the deeper training necessary to recognize when students are headed toward injury. “Today many schools of yoga are just about pushing people,” Black said. “You can’t believe what’s going on — teachers jumping on people, pushing and pulling and saying, ‘You should be able to do this by now.’ It has to do with their egos.”
When yoga teachers come to him for bodywork after suffering major traumas, Black tells them, “Don’t do yoga.”

my blog

I'll be blogging here, should anyone want to hear about my mundane trials and tribulations! Melissa

Friday, January 6, 2012

No rest for the wicked

Its day 6 and I'm like goddamn I've run 5 days in a row isn't it time for a break? Plus it's Friday and that's always a tough day for me to run cause I like to relax after the long workweek. But I did go after I got home and went 2 miles.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Light at the end of the day

Its so awesome that it's only Jan 5 and already the day is getting just a little bit longer, so I can get my run in after work. It was a lovely 68F this evening. I had the second worst day ever at work and so I just ran and ran. For 3 miles. And then I had an awesome half mile walk home.

Worst day ever

Yesterday was such a bad day at work it was all I could do to walk a 2 mile route in part with hand weights after beer and mini chimis. Were it not for janathon it would not have got done at all. But, the point is, it got done.

Don't call it a comeback....

Although, I haven't been here before. Welcome all to Manuary, a humbling, stumbling pursuit of those in the Janathon. While I have run everyday, the first two days of the year really were just spent with my nose running. The next two days I actually ran two miles on each day and then just ran my mouth about blogging about these exploits. Manuary committment already complete today by being the running joke on my plane for accidentally forgetting my watch and wearing my sweatshirt backwards all night and morning until minutes ago. Probably a good thing there is no IQ minimum for Manuaryathoners.

These are the days.

Govern your actions accordingly..

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

2 on day 3

I did a quick 2 tonight after work.  I should say it FELT quick, but since it was me, obviously it was not.  I did not take my watch, cause that's no fun at all.  I will say I was topping a small hill and feeling like I was going marvelously fast, only to be startled by a lady coming up behind me and passing me.  So. 

Monday, January 2, 2012

A long vacay

Today is my last day off of work since Dec 22, and suddenly I have a billion things to do before I go back.  I enjoyed a leisurely jog around noon with ample walk breaks today.  It was a tough one!  Did my 3.5 mi neighborhood route again.  Not sure if it was the sonoran dogs or more likely the tequila shots, but getting back has been tough.  And I only skipped a couple days running over the holidays! 

"For as long
Long as I can remember
It's been December"
- 2am Club, Worry About You

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy Janathon!!

And what a beautiful January day it is - a reminder of why I live in Arizona!  It's about 70 degrees (F) outside, a lovely breeze blowing and sunshine all around.  Fat dog and I did our 3.5 mile route around noon today after sleeping in and having a leisurely breakfast with bf.  It was the kind of day where all runners and joggers and bikers and walkers waved a cheery hello, as we are all starting this year with good intentions to treat ourselves well and stay healthy.  My goal in 2012 is to exercise 5 times a week, and I'm starting with this Janathon commitment, which will get things going with a real bang.  I crashed and burned early on in Juneathon, but I'm back at it.  That's the beautiful thing about running - you can always get back up and go again.  You just have to take that hardest step - the one out the door.  Happy New Year everyone!