Baby steps

I've ran three times since last week!  The first was a desperately hard half mile run.  And today and yesterday I've enjoyed two roughly 1.5 milers.  I'm proud of myself for getting back into it, and I'm excited to see what this summer brings.

My run today was great.  I woke up not really feeling into it (I'm typically a morning runner).  But tonight after Isaac went to work, I dragged myself out of bed and did a little shuffle out of the house.  I ran a different route (pretty slow).  Then at the end, after I had walked for a bit, I sprinted the last quarter mile back to my house.  Luckily, someone actually filmed that part of my run (see below).

Seriously though, I need to remind myself every day how much I love myself when I run.  And I plan to make it a bigger part of my life once again.  In an effort to start rebuilding the habit of running, I'm toying with the idea of doing a running streak.  Several friends of mine posted about doing it in December (bravo if you were one of them).  May is such a perfect month for running.  Not too hot or too cold, though I imagine that the rain will be a deterrent.  I'm still creating my own rules, but basically the challenge is to run every day for the month.  I've seen online that the minimum is one mile, but I think my body might not tolerate that, so I'm thinking of a half mile minimum.  The idea is that just by doing it every day, I'll build it back into my lifestyle.  I hope then that it will continue through the summer and stick with me when school starts back up again.  If you're interested, I found this article to be quite interesting on running streaks.

This week I have one day in the field and two days at school.  Then I have the next week and a half OFF!  Woohoo!  What a great time to really kick this whole thing off and focus on me again!  This is going to be a great summer!

Let's Get Down to Business

Okay gang, I'm back with new healthy goals for the summer.  My first year of graduate school ends in 1.5 weeks, and it's time for me to get back to the body I love.  It's not that I am totally back to my old habits (though the four pieces of pizza and slice of cake yesterday would beg to differ), but I'm not working at my best.  I am much happier with a veggie-based diet and regular exercise.

Since the fall, my weight has fluctuated a bit.  I started grad school around 138 lbs.  By the end of first semester, I was around 143.  Nothing huge, but noticeable.  I took winter break to get down to 135 (for like a minute before I started creeping up again).  I've spent this semester below 140,
but I want more.

And because I do my best work with weight loss goals, I've decided that this summer is about habit building and losing 10 lbs.  I want to run again, I want to work out and eat fresh food.  With no homework again until August, my body will once again become a priority.  Today I ran for the first time in months.  I couldn't even do half a mile!  But I will not give up.  I will rebuild on my old habits, and hopefully by building those now, I will be much better able to maintain them next school year!

Thanks for all of your support as I work on this again!