Either way, I went for a run. I think that’s actually the best medicine for days like today. Get your shoes on, lace up, and go. No excuses. I think I need to come to terms with the fact that I won’t be raring to go for a run every single day. Most days I don’t even want to shower but I know that I have to. That’s actually improved over the last week, I ALWAYS want to shower after I run. It’s the days that I DON’T run that I think, “I’m not leaving the house today, I don’t need to shower.” NEWS FLASH, JANE: You work from home, YOU NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE.

So next time I’m in one of those, “But everything in this dead-end town is BORING and I’m TIRED!” moods, I’m going to put an audio book on my iPod and just suck it up. Yay, reverse-motivation motivation!

Could running barefoot really make that much of a difference? I hear it puts less stress on your knees/shins etc? I’m super aware of injuries because my sister has two shot knees from a car accident and can’t do any high impact sports at all (she used to be a tae kwon-do instructor). No running, no gymnastics, no martial arts, no soccer, no tennis, you get the idea. She can swim and cycle and that’s about it. I know I need to take care of my body if I want to keep putting it through the wringer, day in, day out. So could running “barefoot” with a pair of special shoes really be the answer? Check out the video from egoscuewestchester after the jump.

Today’s run was very short (again, I know) but I beat yesterday’s time so that’s something. I’m running out of interesting places to run. Living in such a small town means I have to do laps or lengths no matter where I decide to go (There are only so many areas with footpaths/enough lighting – street lights are not a priority in the countryside). I’ve long since gotten over the fact that I’ll see the same people time after time in the space of an hour (if they’re out gardening or something) but I hate seeing the same STUFF all the time. It gets so tedious. I can deal with seeing the lady from down the road get in her car and drive to the supermarket and watch her come home with a trunk full of groceries an hour later but running past the same lake over and over again is mind numbingly boring.

Pain-wise everything was okay, today. My muscles were a little stiff last night and this morning but I ran it out no problem. Muscles in my right foot are still giving me grief. Going on three months now! Wondering if I should have it looked at. It doesn’t feel like an injury. It’s sore but not painful, if that makes any sense?

Anyway, any suggestions as to how I can spice up my boring routes? I have music on constantly (Nike+ bitches!) so maybe I need to get myself to do some circuits or crazy funky exercises instead?

I’ve gotten so used to not factoring in time to run that today was no different. When I realised I needed to run, it was almost too late. I did squeeze in a really quick 2 miles, so I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll have more than 15 minutes to run before it gets waaaaay too dark.

It was all rather uneventful if I’m honest. Aside from a small amount of pain in my marathon muscles (these are the muscles that 24 hours after the race cramped up so bad I sat down and cried in the middle of heathrow airport because I couldn’t walk anymore), everything went fine. I waved to the polish guy who religiously washes his used car at least twice a week. I ran down to the village and discovered that to my delight, a large budget supermarket has decided to open up a branch right next to the library. Bad news for the two small supermarkets we have already but wonderful news for me and my need for cheap toilet paper and cat litter.

Roll on December 21, when running before 4pm or else not at all is no longer an issue.

I love, love, LOVE oreo truffles so today I made a big batch of about 50 with two half batches of both plain bourbon cookies and ginger creams. The white chocolate on the ginger creams is taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r to set but I digress. The point is, as I was licking the spoon I was thinking, ‘God, I can’t wait to go for a run tomorrow.’ Which is all well and good until I realise that I actually have quite a bit to do tomorrow (luckily I hit the bank between grocery shopping and my crazy cycle-run-SWIM this afternoon). I’ll be less motivated to stop doing what I’m doing and go spend an hour on the road when I’m smack in the middle of writing at 2 o’ clock in the afternoon. Right now I’m thinking, “Fuck it, you eat lunch at your computer and don’t take any breaks. You can afford to go out and run.” Although I think I’ll have to leave showering until I’m finished work. A nice compromise and one of the perks of working from home!

For extra motivation, I wore my Dublin City Marathon Finisher tshirt. It poured rain, and then started to hailstone half way to the village. On the way home I had to get off the bike and walk because I couldn’t see for the rain and pelting stones. I quickly decided not being able to see is WAAAAY better than being FREEZING cold, soaked and under attack.

Time to do some more writing (for work this time) and then shower and cook. Making dinner should be fun. My first time trying my sister’s eggless carbonara recipe. It’s only eggless because the lady she learned from has a son who’s allergic to eggs and so has a ton of amazing recipes for eggless dishes, like pancakes etc. Anyway, this was the first carbonara I ever tried and now when I eat carbonara in restaurants, I always think, “This isn’t carbonara!”

Here’s to day one, only three hundred and sixty four to go!

My knight in shining armor told me I wasn’t allowed to run because by the time I had finished up work, it was too dark. I’m chalking this one down to, “Not my fault,” but I’m very disappointed in myself. Today was day one and I botched it. It was supposed to be 365 days in.a.row. Maybe I’m putting off starting because I know how hard it will be to maintain this pace for such a long stretch.

I also need to be realistic about when I am going to run. Today I said to myself, “Run at 5pm on the dot.” Sure enough, at 5-oh-7 I was all set but my Chinaman said no. It was very wet and windy out and it was already dark. I was sure it wouldn’t be dark by 5 but there you go. Tomorrow’s goal is a lunchtime run. You’d think working from home would be a God-send because you can basically go whenever you want but the time it takes to stretch out, run and then shower is more of a disruption than you think.

Alright, 365 days of running, TAKE TWO.

Rest assured the less evil side of my brain knows this is all bullshit and will probably force me to go for a run anyway. I have tried to remind this part of my brain that laziness pays off NOW and people with “projects” and “challenges” have too much time on their hands and therefore no friends but it won’t listen. Apparently I have to go because, “The wagon is leaving and you’re not even on it! MOVE!”

Fucking hardass, it’s like being married … to myself.

“No one wants a fat wife,” is probably the most motivating thought the evil side of my brain has had all day. Great, it’s ganging up on me. Fine, I’ll go.

Here we are, nearly two months later and it is only in the last two weeks that I can walk comfortably for more than 20 minutes. I am hoping to start running again and given that I have fully recovered, I think it might be time for me to get down to it.

Unfortunately, some people are bad at keeping up a routine. If you run three times a week religiously, without fail, then you’re a better person than I am. I fear I am one of those people that must get into the habit of going every single God-given day, otherwise I lose my motivation. Many times I have managed to keep up the momentum of every-other-day but as soon as I take a day off, I am back to my lazy, old ways. Training (or not training) for the marathon was good for me. People knew I planned to run 26.2 miles on October 26 so giving up was not an option. Deciding running wasn’t for me was not an option.

Today is the start of something new (it being 12 minutes past midnight). I will run every day. It may only be for 20 minutes on some days while other days I might run for a couple of hours. But I will run every single day. For how long? I need a goal! Goals = motivation!

Let’s tentatively say, one whole year. That sounds fucking scary. Oh man, does that sound scary. Let the games begin!