10 Things Week 3: I Like Numbers (most of them, at least...)

So, I am finished with Week 3 of becoming a runner. Today was my last running day of the week and that finishes up Week 2 of my 16 week plan to a 5K.  It was a good week and I find myself paying attention to little things. I knew this blog would be good for me because I am always wondering what I will have to say on this blog each week--what new I could possibly add. So, as a writer, I am paying attention. And that paying attention on top of this written weekly reflection is somehow helping me. Hopefully that feeling lasts...

1.  I Love Numbers. I am really a math person turned reading teacher.  So I thought about numbers a lot this week.
    *I realized time is not really an excuse for me. I am only running 3 times a week. Even if I ever work up to running an hour at a time, that is only 3 hours.  That means if I sleep 30 minutes less a night, I have plenty of time to exercise.
    *I wanted to know how many times I was running around the track and how fast I am going. I finally discovered the lap counter on my stopwatch. My pace is not impressive. I am going at about a 14 minute mile these days. Nowhere to go but faster:-)
     *I think I ran/walked 6ish miles this week. That is exciting news.  I can understand people who add up miles for the month, etc. Almost as fun as number of books I read.
     *I do not like all numbers. I ran on the treadmill last week. A good workout because the treadmill kept me at a consistent pace. I was happy to see the numbers of minutes I had gone, etc. But I HATED to see that I was working really hard and burning almost no calories. After 25 minutes, I had burned like 145 calories. UGH.  I know, my resting metabolism goes up, blah, blah, blah, but I hated that number. I felt like I should have run off about 3 pounds at least.

2. Icing your knee is much easier than icing your foot. I had to ice my foot with Plantar Faciitis and it was such a pain. This week, I have inflammation in my knee so I had to ice it. It is easy--you just sit somewhere with a bag of ice on your knee.  How my knee is already inflamed with only 30 second spurts of running is beyond me but I have come to understand icing because of it. Here's the thing--I am not an athlete and I never really believed that icing helped. It seemed silly to me.  However, after a day of icing, my pain was gone. Who knew?  Something important to know, I think.  These athletes seem to know what they are talking about...

3. Lululemon has free shipping ALL OF THE TIME!  I love this.  And, not only do they have free shipping but when you order, you get a Lululemon BAG (pictured above)!  I love my new bag. I am thinking it will be my lunch bag this week--the bag to carry all of my healthy food and snacks to school in.  It will make me happy to look at it. I never understood why people got so excited about the bags but now I do!

4.  My mom has offered to buy me a pink Team Sparkle skirt for my first "race". The Columbus Komen Race for the Cure is on Saturday, May 19. I should be able to run a 5K by then. And I think if I have a Team Sparkle skirt, I can definitely do it. We have a huge team of walkers/runners from our elementary school and I am hoping lots of team members wear a pink skirt. Seems the perfect event for such a skirt I think!  It is so odd that such a crazy little skirt is motivating me, but it makes this journey to running far more fun.

5.  People have medal holders. There seem to be lots of these for sale all over the web. That means a lot of people need these.  I am fascinated by this whole idea of medal holders.  Who knew? I am quite the shopper and I have never seen medal holders. I can't imagine I will ever need one but I do like to know the things runner shop for.   I personally like this one on Etsy but there is quite a variety.

6.  Runners drink CHOCOLATE MILK! It's right up there with green tea and vegetable juice!  This is the best bit of information I learned this week. I LOVE chocolate milk and to find out that it is a good thing to drink as a runner made me very very happy. It is particularly good after a run so I may have to buy a few individual servings.  This is great news.

7.  I found a runner who has 17 pairs of running shoes. I love her blog and I love it more now!  17 pairs of shoes--LOVE that! Maybe I can become one of those fit women who wear running pants and running shoes everywhere. Then I can have 17 pairs of running shoes. Really, I had no idea that some runners had this many shoes. This is almost as good as the Chocolate Milk information.

8. I can only run to songs that I know the words to. That is pathetic I know. But otherwise, I am so confused by the meaning of the song that I can't focus on running.  I need to work on my playlist and my 12 year old showed me how to edit today so I am set.

9. I need to buy a sleeveless yoga shirt. It is like 100 degrees in yoga and I am over the fact that my arms are fat. A sleeveless shirt makes good sense!

10.  We motivate each other.  I can't tell you how many friends are being supportive in so many ways. I don't know that anyone can make big changes without lots of support.  I loved Katherine's post on Motivation this week. We are motivating each other because we know we are not in this alone.