Just bought some daily vitamins and glucosamine chondritin (which is quite expensive all on it's on, plus you're supposed to take it 3 times, so you'll run through a bottle in no time).

Hopefully, I'll feel more alert towards the end of the day now that I have a multivitamin to take.  I'm sure I must be missing something.

Last night, I stretched for 45 minutes.  I noticed that whenever I do an exercise/stretch routine that I get off of the internet and it specifies some time it oughta take, I always take much longer.  Much of the time, I don't see how getting it done that fast is even possible.  Anyhow all of my stretching should have taken 15 minutes, but it didn't (see above).  I had an ITBS stretch included and after I was done, it didn't seem to make any difference in the twinge in my knee.  I had gone through a few ITBS links I got on a thread at coolrunning.com and it suggested an inner thigh exercise (the inner thighs apparently don't get worked much, if at all, during running, so it causes a muscle imbalance).  I did 16 of them and the twinge was gone...GONE!  I know it makes no sense, but it's true.  Perhaps it was all just coincidental.  Whatever it was, I as happy.  Although, I'm still waiting for it to reappear during my run tomorrow.

Today, I tried to do this strength program I got off Runner's World's site.  It was going well at first, but there were two exercises that I'm not certain I'm doing right, plus I ran out of time.  It was supposed to take 25 minutes max, but took me (without even doing all of the sets) about 50 minutes.  I'm hoping that now that I am familiar with it, it will go faster because you're supposed to do these exercises before running.  But with that and stretching (a must), I will definitely have to wake up at 4 AM sharp.  Sigh.

The left side of me is rebelling!  First it was the foot, today it's the knee.  My knee felt fine while doing my 1.5 mile run today, but while I was driving to work I started to feel that twinge in my knee that is usually the precursor to ITBS!  It's not fair!  I will be stretching tonight and Thursdays are my days off of running, so it'll get to rest a bit.

I stretched this morning.  It was a nice, calming experience, so I have no reason to not do it anymore.  I laced up my new shoes, New Balance 765, and got on the treadmill and did my 1.5 miles with no pain.  I was estatic.  I just knew my foot would start giving me trouble; it still is a little strained feeling, but not so much as yesterday, so let's hope.

In addition to stretching, I'm going to start doing these strengthening exercises I got off of runnersworld.com.  I'm supposed to do them before a run and they take 20 to 25 minutes to do, so I'll have to get up and moving earlier in the morning.  Mondays and Thursdays are non-running days for me, so I'm going to get in some weight training on those days for my upper body which means I need to finish putting together this piece of equipment I bought in December.  I seem to be missing some of the necessary parts (bolts and such) and that's what's keeping me from doing it.

My feet are have a weird ache in a weird place after yesterday's treadmill run.  When I flex my foot (mostly my big toe actually) I get this weird tugging sensation between my big toe and my ankle (on top of my foot, not the bottom).  I post a topic about it at coolrunning.com, but nobody has responded.

I am hoping that my shoes were just too old.  I had been thinking about getting a new pair of shoes for a month or so, but I'm low on expendable cash.  Anyhow, Sunday was the impetus, so today I bought some shoes from a place close to my job.  It's Running Ambitions in Lake Zurich.  Unfortunately, the didn't have my usual Grid Omni's in the ultimate stability version, but I was curious about trying out something different, so I ended up with some New Balance's.  I'll have to edit the model in after I get home as the shoes are in the trunk of my car.  They seem to be stiffer and heavier than my Saucony's, but it's possible that I could use more motion control.

Hopefully, I can get on the treadmill tomorrow morning and test them out.  Hopefully referring to my mysterious foot thing.

I just did 3 miles on the treadmill and it was rather hard.  I guess it's on and off like that.  I even did it super slow.

Glad it's done though.  Time to shower; I'm stinky.

Oh, but part of the name of this blog was referring to my wish to compete in the CARA Circuit for Clydesdales.  The lowest weight for women is 135 and last time I checked my weight I was 145, so I wasn't worried about it, but today, I weighed myself and it said 140!  Did I really drop 5 pounds?  Damn.

I mean, I'd be happy at 135, but then I'd have to constantly worry about not losing a pound even.  I guess if I do go below that I can just eat more in the period before weigh-in.

I can't even fathom doing 3 miles on that damn treadmill.  I keep thinking that maybe I should go outside, but the thought of the coldness that awaits stops me.  So, yeah, I'm going to go put on my running clothes and try to psyche myself up.

Saw the ex-fiance last night.  Woke up at 5 AM, came home, got on treadmill for 1.5 miles. I was going to go for 2, but I had too much other stuff to do in the morning.  So, I'll do 3 miles tomorrow event though I was trying to keep my longest run shorter until my base mileage goes up.  Yet, I've done 3+ miles every Sunday for the past couple of weeks and have felt fine, so as long as that's true, I guess I don't need to change anything.

Tomorrow's temp will be in the low teens and since I didn't buy a neck gaitor or something to cover my face, I'll be back on the treadmill again.  Last time I ran when it was in the teens, my face felt like it was beginning to get frostbitten.  Tomorrow's low is -2, so I'm not risking it.

Today, I woke up entirely too late to run or to get to work on time.  I have my running schedule on my laptop at work and I want to put it on here fro posterity and comparison purposes.

My basic goal for this year is to "compete" in the Clydesdale class in the CARA Circuit.  There are seven races I need to complete this year to be considered and hopefully, since most of the them are under 6 miles, I won't get injured during my buildup and training schedules.

My biggest goal is a marathon at the beginning of 2006 at Disney World.  My other blog was about my training for the Disney half-marathon in 2004 and I made it and trained for half a year for it; not I have a complete year and I hope I can get myself marathon ready.  Ready as in not hurting too much during and at the end of the race and it would be sweet if I did it in under 5 hours, but we'll see about that one.

It's another year and I'm back on the running wagon.  This blog will chronicle my runs and my goals for running.  More about this later.

Check out my old running blog in the mean time.