Game on my friends

Today is the day a few friends and I start our contest about getting back into shape. God I need it.  It is basically a daily point system that at the end of every month someone wins and the third month we have overall winner.  The prizes are $90 each month and $150 overall, but it is not the money that matters it is the accountability.  Having to say to someone else - either yeah I worked towards my goals or nope I blew it off.  So let it begin - GAME ON!

So I did my usual to prepare for this type thing - bought new gear.  My sneakers felt trashed and I bought some a few months ago that seemed to just kill my feet.  Arch Support and some stabilization and these new sneakers "should" be better.  Also bought a hydration pack for water because we are supposed to be doing long runs and really after 3 or 4 miles not having water really sucks.  We have tried belts and hand held water bottles, this small hydration pack is the last of the current options - so lets hope we like it.

Now all I have to do is gather the muster to want to run.  So i can see my running this morning (good thing) but now sure how far.  It is such a mental hell war for me when I am running.  If I think about the run, when I am running I feel tired, pain, should stop, cannot keep going....so the goal is to not think about running while running.  Which as you can imagine - is kind of hard.  My mind surfs to just about everything and the comes back to running.  It is almost like meditation really.  In meditation you are not supposed to think about anything.  When you realize you are thinking about stuff, you are supposed to just acknowledge you were thinking and then stop.  I do the same thing with running - except for at the end when it sucks and I want it to be over and all I can think about is every step I am taking.

I do wish I felt a little better this morning to go for this run.  After not drinking all week (Monday - Thursday) we hit it hard Friday and Saturday or we did our normal which is quite a bit of drinking.  This morning I woke up with a headache, stomach unhappy (late night pepperoni slice eating) and I feel so dehydrated and dry that drinking water makes me thirsty.  God I miss being younger and not feeling the impact of drinking.  It will be interesting if I change my overall drinking habits.  I missed waking up like I did on Thursday - rested, not dying for water, no headache.  If I drink all weekend - will the weeks just be recovery every time?  Moderation is not my strong suit and My Guy fills a wine glass faster than anyone I have ever seen.  This makes it seem I get crazy drunk, not so...but it still has a wallop of an impact.  Definitely counter to the healthy in shape goals I have set for myself.

Anyways time to go put all that gear to use and go for a run - counts as 1 point and will burn off some of the calories from the alcohol, m&m's and pepperoni from last night.