I’m a big fan of Option C. Whenever possible, that’s the option I choose. No, no, it’s not some new fangled alternative birth control method. It’s a decision point.

You remember Scan-Tron tests right? The tests where you had to use your #2 pencil to fill in the bubble that corresponded with your answer. There were always for answers to the test question. Answers A and B were usually two good choices, answer C was “Both of the Above”, and answer D was “None of the Above”. You remember those kinds of tests, right? Well, anyway. Whenever I’m faced with two good choices, I like to choose C.

For example, last night I was faced with the choice - go running or hang out with The Hoff and drink wine and eat yummy spinach appetizers while our kids were someplace else. It was a difficult decision for me, between the two really great ideas- work towards meeting my marathon goal, or have some much needed chill out time with a very good friend. So I chose Option C - Both of the Above.

I found a way to have both. Isn’t that just so typically American? Why limit myself to one, when I can find a way to have it all? Who says I have to pick just one? I’m the boss of me!

In a perfect world The Hoff would have come over and run with me, she does have to put a swimsuit on in public this weekend. But she’s nursing a neck injury and wasn’t to excited about running around Stinky Lake. I ran when I got home, and she met me a little later and we chilled.

Did you catch that? I ran last night. I got in my car, drove 45 minutes home, sat down on the sucking sofa twice and still managed to get my fat ass up and outside. I ran the loop around Stinky Lake. It took me about 45 minutes between warm up and finishing the loop. The weather was awesome! It was 90 degrees when I left the house, cloudy and windy. Which means there wasn’t a direct sun beating down on me and reflecting off the pavement. The wind was cool and as the sun slipped behind the clouds the night was just beautiful. It was my usual run/walk routine, but I finished the entire 3.5 mile loop.

I was very proud of myself.

The weather’s been unseasonably cool here lately (what Global Warming? Oh wait…Climate Change. That’s right). When the whistle blew and it was time to lace up my Ariels and do some running, it was 88 degrees. No, not 188 degrees. 88 DEGREES! I don’t know what’s up with the weather patterns here in Farrahzona, but I’m digging the below normal temps.

I talked Running Buddy into going outside and enjoying the rare opportunity to run after work, outside, in June. We ran the canals near the office. It was…different. I’m used to running on treadmills in the evenings. The dirt/gravel combo and the hills made it an challenging run. Of course, I’m 40lbs overweight (gained 5lbs last week! what?) trying to run a marathon. It’s always a challenge. I stuck with my plan of running until I couldn’t catch my breath, and stopped often. I was actually a little embarrassed to have Running Buddy see me this way. She’s a runner. She did 6 miles on Saturday. I was hurting trying to complete 1.25 before we turned around and headed back to the cars.

I enjoyed it a great deal. The birds and the bunnies and the fish in the canals made it cool. It certainly beat reading the closed captioning of a wall-mounted TV. I was energized when I was done too. I was able to sit down and remove my tennies when I got home, and didn’t get sucked into the couch. I’m going to run like that whenever I can.

And so here we are. It’s Wednesday afternoon and it’s a running day. Running Buddy is otherwise engaged this afternoon, so running is on my own. I’m sitting in my office looking at the piles of work I have in front of me. I’m thinking about everything else I’d rather be doing tonight, everything else I HAVE to do tonight and I don’t want to run. Running hasn’t made it on to my HAVE To Do list yet. I know it should, but it hasn’t.

But it’s gorgeous outside my office window. The sun is shining, the clouds are sparking in the sky. The Weather Channel says it’s only 90 degrees outside. 90 on a June afternoon! Sweatshirt weather, really.

But I haven’t seen The Hoff in a week and she wants to come over tonight and hang out. We must talk of many things - of shoes and ships and ceiling wax, of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings. The Hoff wants to drink wine and eat yummy appetizers. I want.

But I have this goal - a goal of running a marathon and raising money to cure evil blood cancers. Last Saturday showed me how much it sucks when you don’t follow the training schedule and this Saturday is 4 miles. It will be worse for me than it was last week.

My will is being tested. How bad do I want this?

I’ll find out in less than half an hour.

I’m starting to realize the training program is designed a certain way for a reason. That reason is simply that it works.

I ran one day last week. One. Monday. I was a total dolt and forgot my running shoes on Wednesday and when I got home the sofa seemed to suck me in. I sat down to remove my heels and the cushions opened up and swallowed me whole. I really had no chance as soon as my tush met microfiber. The rest of the week I just couldn’t do. I was constantly exhausted and the last thing I felt like doing was running.

I didn’t do much of anything at all last week actually. I just wasn’t into it. My usual mind tricks I use failed me. You know the little tricks one employs when one needs to be pumped up? For example, my favorite is to remind myself that Lance Armstrong can ride a bike pretty well with one testicle. I can certainly run a marathon with all my working parts, right? Not even that could get my tush off the cush.

I paid for it on Saturday’s group run. Boy did I pay for it. Mileage for Saturday’s group run was 3 miles (we seem to be ramping up one mile per week). After the first 10 steps I was done. I wanted to die. My lungs were burning. The slice of pizza I had at 4am was threatening to make a reappearance. I had 100lb weights strapped to each foot and it was, frankly, a miracle I was able to complete the run.

I ran, rather slowly, the first 1.5 mile leg. Once I turned around to head back to the meeting spot, I alternated between running and walking. Does it really count if I run ten steps and then walk 200? Because that’s what I was doing.

I consider Saturday to be a failure. Sure, I completed the mileage. But it wasn’t a quality run. Kinda like the equivalent of knowing you have a term paper due at the end of the semester, and blowing it off until the day before it’s due. Sure, you get it done, but the quality of what you hand in is sub-par. That’s what my run was on Saturday, sub-par. Something I half-assed because it was due. I’m a bit disappointed in myself really. I don’t half-ass anything.

So I’m trying to spin Saturday’s crap run into something positive. First, stick to the training schedule. I have to remind myself this is an endurance sport. I have to build endurance. It won’t happen if I blow off the schedule. I’ve ordered a second pair of running shoes and will keep a stocked gym bag in my EVIL luxury SUV at all times. Wardrobe will no longer be an excuse for me.

Secondly, I have to watch my diet. I think the run on Saturday would have gone better had breakfast been a bowl of oatmeal and some orange juice….and not the double pepperoni slice and diet coke that I had. Thank the Lord the weather was cool (68 degrees at meeting time!). Otherwise the heat would have certainly made me lose my breakfast. We had a nutrition clinic on Saturday after the run. The dietician gave me her card. I think I’m going to make an appointment to have her design a diet for me. I can follow a plan. I can’t design one on my own. I’m simply not that smart.

Thirdly…I just have to do it. Running Buddy and I are on for this afternoon. I’ll let you know how it goes.

No, sorry. This is not a post about current events. Though I have lots, and lots and lots of things to say about what’s going on in the world these days. And I know you’re all just dying to hear what I think about the nationalization of the banking and automobile industries. But alas… everything I learned about raising money I learned from The Dixie Chicks. It’s never a good idea to say something inflammatory when you need people to give you money.

Nope, I really do want to talk about Hope & Change.

Today was yet another training session - 30 minutes timed running. I worked out on a treadmill with Running Buddy (who’s cheating on me!! - more on that later) at the fitness center at the office. I settled into a routine of 2 minutes running, 2 minutes walking and my 30 minutes flew by. It’s still hard work trying to get these 170lbs moving, but it’s getting easier. I found myself getting into a groove around 1 minute 30 seconds of my running interval. I didn’t do as well as I did on Saturday, but I can feel the small improvements every time lace up my Brooks. It gives me hope. Every little improvement is that much closer to completing my goal. That is such a great feeling.

My body is subtly changing too. There isn’t enough change to justify purchasing a cute little running skirt without feeling like people will be sneering at the fat girl trying to be stylish. But after slathering on the SPF 30 after my shower this morning,  I can feel changes in my calves. I actually have calf muscles! I have the calves of an athlete…under all the fat. They flex and relax and move and pop out of my legs in certain angles.

It’s not like I was feeling myself up or anything dirty like that. But you know how you can just feel changes in your body as you go about your daily routine. And you think ” Wow. Wonder when that happened?”.  You know what I’m talking about, right? Right? No? Oh. Well. Anyway.

Running Buddy was tardy to our workout this afternoon. She strolled in all nonchalante about 30 minutes late, without a care in the world and her new cute haircut. The treadmills were taken so she was banished to the cheater bike (that’s the recumbent bike). And as she’s slowly cycling away, she tells me she did her real run workout this morning before work! How could she? I thought we were running together on Mondays and Wednesdays? She went solo. On her own. I feel so betrayed!

No not really. I’m really just jealous of the time she has in her schedule to workout in the morning. I wish I had the stability in my schedule to get up and do my running workout in the morning. After the run on Saturday I’m starting to think my body performs better during morning runs than evening runs.

I wonder if I can rearrange my schedule to free up my mornings.