Day Seventy-Four: Disaster

Well today officially marked TOM, and while I would have rather laid in bed finishing my book (The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova) and cuddling my heating pad, I decided around 12:30 that I should get off my arse and go down to the exercise room to work out. Besides, today I was going to try running barefoot--something I had read about, but hadn't thought of doing until Jess mentioned it on her blog. Actually, I'm looking forward to my C25K days a lot more than my regular elliptical days. Something about running is just freeing--even if I'm not going anywhere on the treadmill--, where as I can feel so trapped behind the elliptical.

So I get dressed and go down to complete W2D2. Even though I wanted to be barefoot, I decide to keep my socks on for the run. Big mistake. The rubbing of the coarse cotton was terrible. So what was it like? One, I walked slower than usual, but I found running easier. I also noticed a definite change in my posture and even the way I landed on my feet--more forward, near the ball of my foot. Best way I found to describe it was this little snippet I found on running form from Running Planet: "As a distance runner, your most efficient foot plant is one in which your foot lands directly under your hips or your center of gravity. You may land on the ball of your foot or flat footed. The ideal landing position is slightly toward the outside edge of your foot, just behind your little toe. Your foot would then naturally roll slightly inward while pushing off over your big toe. The slight inward roll of your foot is called pronation and provides some cushioning during the running stride." Sounds good to me! If I can run like this all the time, I'm even willing to put up with the initial blisters I have right now. I'm going to do the next day completely barefoot and see how I like it.

Warning this may be TMI: Aside from all the excitement of running barefoot, working out today was a disaster. I kept pausing my workout instead of changing speed; I must have done that three or four times. Why is the pause button so close to the speed buttons? Why? Really. So inefficient. And then......23 minutes into the workout, the unthinkable happens. I drop my ipod and as I'm picking it up off the ground, I suddenly have to pee...and I can't hold it. The closest bathroom is still minutes away, so I'm crossing my legs and wiggling around. It doesn't help. I start to pee my pants anyways. Quickly I rush outside, run around the building and pull my pants down, hoping no one's looking. I could have gone home then. I could have given up in shame, gone home, cleaned up and left it at that. But I didn't. I mustered what courage and pride I had left, walked back in there and finished the run. Then after I went home and cleaned up and changed, I went back down and got on the elliptical for another 15 and lifted weights. ...I am a trooper. Seriously.

On the other hand, 1426 pages read so far this month. Go me!