I am at 997 miles on the year. I can't believe that I am this close to making my goal. Nick, Jeff, and I are registered for a 5K on Saturday—that should just about do it!

• My last class to complete my marketing degree officially ends on November 15, 2010.
  Wait a minute, let me try that delivery again: MY LAST CLASS ENDS IN NINE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  There, that's better.
  
  This has been a work-intensive class, and I am easily writing 5,000 - 10,000 words every week to complete my assignments. I'm all out of words, but I am getting through knowing that the end is near. It also helps that the class is in consumer behavior, which is one of the most interesting areas of marketing.


• Since starting school again in 2007, I cringe while blogging. I struggle to find the balance between conversational writing and using proper language skills. I use contractions. I start sentences with conjunctions ALL THE TIME. I use the word it. I abuse the passive voice. This is not how I present myself in formal essays, but separating the two voices of Laura is difficult.


• I am at 900 running miles for the year. I am trying to get the motivation to go for a run this morning, but something has been off during my runs this last week. I'm not feeling pain exactly…I know how to deal with that particular woe. I guess what I am feeling is dispassionate. Apathetic maybe. I don't know, but every step has felt like a chore this week, and that just sucks all of the joy out of running. I planned to do my weekly 10er yesterday, but I cut it short and did an upper body strength training workout instead. Runner-Laura is a much happier person, so I hope I figure it out!


• On the subject of running, I expressed to Nick today that I hope that I continue with regular running mileage once my challenge is over, because I'm pretty proud of the cardiovascular fitness I have achieved this year. Maybe I will have to set a similar challenge for next year, but only at an easier distance, like 750. That would allow me flexibility to do activities other than running. I am undecided.


• Nick is having to temporarily work a different shift at work, and we never see each other. He should be back on my schedule by Thanksgiving, but it has been weird coming home to an empty, quiet house and going to bed alone. Sophie is very confused.


• In my "spare time" (read: when I have writer's block for school assignments) I have been trying to upload old photos from my last summer with Mom to Flickr. I have been storing them on an external hard drive that was probably purchased a decade ago. I would be devastated if I lost the pictures, so this will make me feel better. It's a very slow process.
  
  


• I have decided to get my wedding band soldered to my engagement ring. I will have to drop off the set at the end of this month to make sure it is ready by the time we fly out in December. I am going to feel very naked without it! I will also need to get my wedding dress taken in before then. I really haven't lost weight doing P90X, but my clothes are all too big now!


• We are going to the first Badger men's basketball game of the season tonight. I am excited to see our team this year. We bought a nine-pack of tickets that the University was offering. The seats are not great, but it gets me in the door to watch 'my' boys. I would love to have season tickets, but the Badgers are popular—no room left in the in! A coworker of mine mentioned in passing that he has season tickets in the first level, but that making it to a lot of the games is difficult with kids. I told him to keep me in mind if he ever needed to get rid of tickets for face, and it is actually his tickets that we will be using tonight. SWEET. I love Nick for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest is because he introduced me to college basketball.


• I tried to be superwoman last night and do Ab Ripper X. I tried back in September, and I had a mini-relapse of my disabling back pain. I spent a week on muscle relaxers, narcotics, and lidocaine patches. I decided to try it again, but with heavily modifying everything to be kinder to my back. I really really hurt today. I guess that seals the deal: never again.


• I know this isn't really a decent post about much of anything. Maybe when I am not writing so much for class I will come back in full form? I am going to cut this one off here because I could really go on rambling for quite some time, when what I really need to do is figure out what to do with my hair when I get married since I have less than two months now! Where did this year go?


• Ciao!

Last week, I mentioned the appreciation I have for Nick training for his half marathon last year, and I have been thinking about that all week because it was the first time that I ever saw him dedicate himself to a structured exercise program of any kind. Additionally, I give him much credit for his half marathon, as, at this time, I do not see myself ever running a formal half marathon. I have run the distance and further before, but I have completed my runs on "good days" instead of a specific date on the calendar.

I will forever admire people who can train for a high impact event by calendar days. I have come to the conclusion that I have to work with my body instead of against it, and that has made the difference this year compared to last year. Instead of being bitter, I think I will choose to celebrate that we each have our own strengths and weaknesses, and move on. Good job on completing your first half, Nick! You are awesome!



I think it is important with anything to track your progress. Improvements happen so gradually that it is easy to forget the journey you have been on. I have been using Nike Plus for all of my running this year, and the program has only eaten a couple of them—the technology is still flawed, but I am mostly happy with the system. I also sync to Daily Mile, which does allow for manual entry, but I do not want a manual override option in Nike Plus because it would be so easy for people to cheat on challenges. Oh well! Who knows how to fix it!

Above is my running graph from January and my graph from last month. Everything about my running has improved. My longest distance in January was seven miles, and my longest in September was 15. My pace was 9:22 (which I was very impressed with at the time), and my pace is now around eight minutes a mile. My cumulative running pace through Nike Plus has finally dropped below 9:00 per mile.

I had a long stretch (2008 and 2009) where I was running over 10:00 minutes per mile, and every step felt like a jackhammer in my spine. I was running on a schedule instead of when I was feeling good. My running was also very staggered, and my frustration affected my ability to condition myself to the sport. In the last couple of months, I have had several runs below 8:00 per mile, and I am very happy with that. I know it's not the fastest, and I can't do it on demand, but it's self improvement.

I can definitely tell, compared to other months, that Nick and I started P90X on September 13, because that's when the longer runs started becoming only a once-a-week thing. It was my original intention to get in three miles a day during P90X training, but I realized quickly that A.) three miles does not give me a runner's high and B.) I like rest days between running. The first month of the program was extremely low carb, and it looks like I documented most of my runs during that period with sad faces by them, hah!

The only other time I have gone a bit extreme with removing a macro nutrient from my body was when I started losing weight, and I cut out most of my fat (not knowing any better). After my skin started flaking and my hair started falling out, I put two and two together and realized that fat in moderation plays a very important role in maintaining a healthy body! I lost the majority of my weight eating 65% to 70% quality carbohydrates, so I have never been interested in the low-carb craze!

Nick and I agreed to keep an open mind with the P90X program though, so we did the required four weeks of low- to no-carbohydrates. I will say that doing so has helped me appreciate carbs as an energy source rather than a pick-me-up after a stressful day. The first 10 mile run I attempted on low carbs nearly made me cry because I felt so inadequate! I was in the habit of running a 13+ distance every week, and suddenly I was hitting a wall at seven! This week is the first week where we've added high fiber, low glycemic index carbohydrates. I have had such a spurt of energy off them that I'm almost hyper! I've had trouble falling asleep at night because I have all this extra pent up energy!

Between the two graphs, I also think it is interesting that I ran for an hour less in September compared to January, but nearly completed an additional six miles. I am now tracking my heart rate while running, and I highly doubt that my average heart rate in January would have been in the 150s! I keenly remember feeling like I was going to die at the end of five miles at the beginning of this year! Besides, I like looking at the heart rate vs pace graphs that Nike spits out for me! As you can see, I've only been tracking heart rate since June.



I've said this several times this year, but making myself this goal to run 1,000 miles was one of the best things I have ever done for myself. I have 170 miles left to get done in the next two and a half months, and I already feel such a huge sense of accomplishment and empowerment. All this from something so simple. I feel great, and I hope to continue seeing improvements.

• Okay, how cute is my cat? Seriously. If I was that adorable, I'm pretty sure I could conquer the world while everyone was busy being spellbound by my charm.



• On Monday, Nick and I started what will be a very busy 90 days: we started the P90X program. The workout schedule requires an hour every day, and that's not so bad. I did the plyometrics workout yesterday, and it was actually easy compared to Jillian's. Or, maybe my cardiovascular health is pretty darn awesome after eight months of regular running. (I guess that's a valid reason, too…but I usually cry during Jillian's workout because she takes me to the end of my energy reserves until I have nothing left). One thing that really impresses me about Tony Horton's instruction is that he seems to care a bit more about good form, telling the viewer to do as many reps as they can with good form and then stop. My knees thank him most graciously.



• My Nike+ Sportband ate my 10-mile run last Wednesday. I was really bummed out. I worked with the support techs at Nike who were excellent with customer service, but sadly unable to get my run to transfer to my Nike+ account. 10 has become my easy long distance, as long as I have 80 minutes or so to give to it. But losing this run was particularly rough because I knew I would have to cut down on the long runs with the P90X program. Two days later, I ran 15 miles which thankfully tracked. This was the LONGEST I have ever run, and I was so impressed that I was able to do it that I almost cried. I am running 3 miles a day to keep up with my mileage goal for the year while doing the P90X program.



• Nine weeks! I only have NINE WEEKS of school left. My last professor was really nit-picky, the kind that didn't like to give full points on anything. We've all had them. I was psyched to see my final grade, and that I scored 100% on all of my final week assignments. Go me. I am now in a pretty fun class on advertising and creative strategy, which is right up my alley. Even so, these nine weeks are going to go very slowly. I know this because it seems like I've been celebrating 10 weeks left for the last month (when it has only been seven days).



• I'm a little impressed with myself that I remembered how to do unordered lists in HTML without looking it up...what has it been since I've used one? Eight years? It's the little things…
  
  Too bad my brain doesn't store more useful information than UL and LI codes.

So this year is about accomplishing a lot of things, one of them being to run 1,000 miles this year. This challenge requires new shoes on a much faster rotation because I am reaching that 300 mile mark much faster. I got smart in February/March, and bought two pairs of 2009 New Balance running shoe models at a heavy discount. I have been rotating between the two pair, which are different models completely, with my runs. My feet feel awesome.

The NB shoes now come with those bubble laces. I love them. My shoes never come untied. Or at least they never did, until this year. Now I am wearing these suckers down. For the first time ever in my entire life, I need to replace shoelaces before replacing shoes.

So I ordered two sets of laces, and they arrived last week. Just tonight, I re-laced my first pair of shoes. Oh my lord, what a difference it makes! Like new shoes! They hug my feet properly again! I don't have to double knot! I have another six weeks or so before I need to buy more shoes, so this is great to have the feeling of new for three dollars during the interim.

I keep telling myself to snap out of it, they're only laces—BUT, they're really nice laces without sweat stains and that new shoe smell!!! I'm definitely a lace-changing convert! Try it!