And they were singing…

As always, I made time Monday for my annual Marathon Monday run. It’s 2.6 miles, which is one-tenth of a marathon for those unfamiliar with the sport. It also happens to be two loops around the park if I can run the whole 2.6 in one sitting. Alas, I have not run in several months before this week, so I had to cover about 6 miles alternating running and walking to get my 2.6 in. Oh, my aching legs!
I read somewhere that if you can do anything for 21 straight days, it becomes a habit. So my current goal is to spend at least 30 minutes walking for 21 days, mixing running in as I feel like it. (That’s not a cop-out – I actually do prefer running so it gets mixed in pretty often.)
Tuesday I settled for walking because my legs were aching. Wednesday, well, things went a little haywire at work and I didn’t get any walking done, let alone running. But this morning I went out and ran about three-quarters of a mile out of my 2-mile loop. I considered doing a second loop, but figured I was better off going easy today and being able to run again tomorrow. (And for those counting, skipping Wednesday meant I started over on my 21 days, so I’m now at Day 1.)
Today was the first time I ever ran with music – my iPod – and I kind of liked it. There’s no safety issue because I run in the park instead of on the roads, and it actually made the running portion of the loop go by faster. So I think I’m going to continue running to music and see if that makes it easier to build distance because I’m not thinking about how much further I have to go each step. (As I discovered Monday, if I’m not thinking about the actual running, I get in a pretty good groove and cover more ground before I have to walk.)
My goal for April is to be able to run two, three-quarter-mile segments over the course of four miles (two extended loops) over consecutive days.