The First One.

December 27th

I decided that I should start a blog. I've been playing with the idea for a while, going back and forth with the thought, and today on my run I decided, "Yes! Hell yes!". So here I am. Sitting on our living room floor, sweaty, smelling disgusting, and wanting to get this thing going!

The point of my blog will be to be able to document my training- to keep track of what's working and not. Most importantly, to keep myself accountable and motivated. I am running the Austin Half Marathon on Feb. 20th. As of today, I'm not ready..not even close. I have to change a few things about my lifestyle.

When we finish the pack of cigarettes that we are on, I'm done. I have got to quit! I HAVE TO QUIT SMOKING!!! Angie, you WILL quit smoking. I can feel it in my chest after a mile. It's a tightening feeling that burns. I'm already using an inhaler. I shouldn't have to be.

I've done a half marathon before. It was 2 years ago in Colorado. The difference between that experience and this one is that I want to do this one 'the right way'. I got way too intense and went a bit, 'over the line' with that training. The big secret that I've kept is that during that training, I deprived myself of ANY tasty foods on a day to day basis. I look back at that now and realize that I actually had what some might consider a ...bum bum bum, eating disorder. Today, over 2 years later, I'm able to admit it for the first time. I would starve myself...I wouldn't eat anything at home except maybe some egg whites for breakfast and a breast of chicken at night. At work, I had a cabinet where I had my 'treasures' stored. I would lock myself in my classroom during my break and down, literally, bags and bags of chips, multiple candy bars, and a shitload of popcorn, all in one sitting. Anything that I could get my hands on that actually had flavor.  I wouldn't make myself throw up, but I wouldn't tell a soul. I didn't want anyone to know about my horrendous eating habits. I would make myself go run all of it off. I would cheat by not writing down, in my food log,  ALL of the food that I would sneak into my classroom. So basically, I would binge eat a couple times a week, run and run and run every single day, and thought it was alright because I was losing weight. People would tell me how tiny I was getting. My friend Leah came into my classroom one day and asked me what the hell I was doing because all of my pants "were practically falling off of me". Bottom line is, I wasn't taking in the calories that I needed to, not for the distance that I was running- 9,10,11 miles at times. There wasn't any kind of balance to anything that I was doing-eat, running, dropping weight, nothing.

Here is what I want to do differently this time. This time:

• I will allow unhealthy foods throughout my week. My only 'food goal' is to try to work in a salad everyday or every other day.
• I'm not cutting out alcohol, just cutting back...a little bit. Maybe 3-4 glasses of wine when we go out on a Saturday night, rather than 6-7. 
• Smoking- I have to stop. It's going to suck. Bad. Really bad. I have to quit though.

• Not run to the point of injury. I have bad arches and bad knees. When I feel those areas feeling pain, I'll back off a bit. There probably won't be any getting around wearing my knee brace, but I won't push it as hard as I did then. That was just stupid.   

A HUGE difference this time will be having Colin. The support that I've gotten from him so far has been incredible. I could create a different blog on just us and our relationship, but I don't think I would ever be able to stop typing. He's literally my angel. I would be lying if I didn't say that he is a huge part of the reason that I've stepped up to the plate and have taken on this personal challenge. I have no doubt he will be everything I need during this training and more.

Ok, so today.... I went on my usual 3 mile loop at TL. It's SO gorgeous running down there. Every time I run over that bridge, I feel like in a movie. A movie about a 28 year-old woman, living in Austin, with a fucking fabulous life. That's me! It look me 28 years to get here, but that's me! Ok, back to the run... it was nice. Very windy. I ran in my new shoes. They are Nike's that I got for Christmas (what a kick-ass gift, huh?). My left arch was a bit achy towards the end of the run, but that could just be because I was 'breaking them in'. I'll try the same run tomorrow and see how they feel. If I need to, I'll go switch them out with other shoes. I felt a bit short-of-breath after the first mile-ugh! There were a lot of families out there. I wish Colin could have been with me. Maybe this weekend we'll go on a walk out there..if he wants to...

Overall, it was a decent run. My running playlist is growing, but I hate hate hate my stupid ipod. I doesn't shuffle so I have to listen to the same list of songs in the same order every single run. I much prefer Colin's ipod. I need to go find it and throw on my new music. I'll do that now.

Thanks for listening blog. Not bad for the first one. :)