Books, Food and a Short Run

I have read and heard that there are good days and bad days in running. In some ways I feel I felt my first bad day today. Today I set out for two miles. My plan was to walk the first mile and then run what I could for the second, then I would do a half mile cooldown around my condo complex. Run time temperature was 50 degrees on a beautiful clear day, I thought it would be great for getting out and running. Three quarters of the way into my first mile I decided to go ahead and start the running, I was feeling good. I found a stride that felt good and went with it, yet I did not really pay attention to the pacing and my body tired rather quickly within the next quarter mile. Returning to a walk I did a recovery quarter mile then stepped up the speed again. Although, this time I paid more attention to my pacing and managed to maintain a slower, yet more consistent speed over a greater distance. That I was happy with. With another quarter mile recovery walk and one more stint on the run I finished up walking it in. At the end of two miles I had gone at an overall 14:21 pace. By the end of my cooldown I had covered 2.71 miles at an overall pace of 15:16. My cooldown was really slow. Now what makes me feel like this was a bad day is that (a) I feel like I labored more during the run than I should have, and (b) throughout the rest of the afternoon my body ached a bit more than it had in the past. I think my body was expecting more activity and when I called it quits at the point when I usually find that light switch it just did not know what to do.

Moving onto other run-related activities, I spent a good bit of time today working on my blog site, giving you more information in the sidebar. It was a pleasure doing it and I have a list of some other additions to come in time. Also today, while out running errands I swung by Borders Bookstore to pick up a book I read about online just the other day. It is called Eat This, Not That. It is a great book for the traveler or anyone that has to or chooses to eat out frequently. It does not tell you to not eat out, what it does do is tell you alternative selections to certain menu items at numerous popular restaurants to help watch your caloric intake. It is quite a jaw dropping eye opener. There is also a section for when you go to the grocery store. The reviews I had read about it were enough to make me go out and get it. And, since I was at Borders and had a 40% off coupon with a $20 purchase, the book was just under $20, I also picked up Running for Mortals, another book written by "The Penguin" John Bingham. Following my book purchases I made my way over to the grocery store. The importance of the grocery store is that I made a change in my cereal purchase this week. Instead of Special K or whatever sweet cereal I was craving, I took advantage of the 3 for $8 Kashi cereals, picking up three different kinds to sample. Now, my marathon sister has been eating this stuff for years so it is not foreign to me. However, now that I am trying to get my weight down and have running goals, I figure this is a good move forward to aid in both goals.