MapMyRun App



Yum!!!!( Photo stolen from someone's
Syrian Flickr album- don't judge. it
was the only good one of the bread!)



Tonight I went on my (almost) three mile run.  I blame the traffic lights for slowing me down and eating into my time available tonight.  I used the MapMyRun app on my phone and it worked pretty well.  I obviously can't run in a straight line... even sober.  The goal was to also go to Zumba tonight at LT's chapter meeting but I made the mistake of running through Greek Village and by the restaurants and I ended up making a detour by Al Amir and eating my weight in Damascus bread and hummus.  However, after watching the girls I would really like to try Zumba (preferably in the comfort of my own home).  So I may pick up a dvd and give it a whirl.

2011 Changing Carolina 5K

USC is holding another 5k at the end of February and they are running training sessions to get you where you want to be for this event.  I joined the Run group because, as I have said many times before, I am solidly in the jogging category and would like to be a runner.  Tonight was the first session I was able to attend and it was a walk/jog training... and I was it tonight.  Though that was nice because the pace was all me tonight as I jogged with the grad assistant who was facilitating.  I wasn't holding anyone back and as it was walk/jog no one was holding me back either.  We thought the low turnout was due to the weather as it rained all day yesterday and was not much better this morning.  My goal at the end of this is to shave three or four minutes off my time.  We will see how it goes.
Tonight's route:

Up and running



Who knew this innocent
looking sandwich could
be so evil and cruel?

Heee, heee, heee.  That's what I heard tonight.  No, it wasn't someone going into labor and no, it wasn't someone laughing hard.  No, it was me panting while running tonight.  It was not pretty.  It was may first time out since the PB&J incident and boy was I feeling it.  And not helping matters was the music that was playing... which was made worse by the fact it was mine and playing on my ipod.  The shuffle feature was picking crappy music tonight.  Good music, but not what I wanted to run to.  I mean really who can get a good pace going to Joan Baez's version of  'How Many Roads'?  And if you can then I bow down to you.  Though the Forrest Gump soundtrack is one of the greatest collections of music ever.  Just sayin'.  But it doesn't get me going like Prodigy and Shakira.  However, I got in two and a half miles so I will take it.  Hopefully I will get back into the swing of things now that the semester has started back up and I have my schedule figured out.

Ice ice baby

After two days of South Carolina being shut down due to snow and ice, we are finally thawing out.  Not quickly, but many places were open again although in some outlying areas things are still really bad.  Most schools are still closed and will be until next Tuesday (not much point in a one day week with Friday and Monday being holiday's for MLK day).  USC opened back up at 10:30 today.  Needless to say, here in the south we are not very prepared and today was the first day I felt able to get outside and go further than ten feet.  Though you can see all areas are not clear from the photos.  That was definitely a walk patch.  So I concentrated on jogging around the State House since I knew those sidewalks would be clear today due to Haley's inauguration.  Nobody wants a lawsuit :).  While running, there were some fairly nice ice angels on the grounds. Can't really tell from the photo but that was made in the ice.  I can only imagine how badly that drop hurt! 

My poor phone

So... the good news is I went for a run last night for the first time this year. I have been very lazy over the past few weeks and finally was able to just go. However, right before the run, my phone (which I carry with me for safety and for the running app which tracks my miles and time) fell into water. I immediately take it apart and wrap the pieces in my towel to dry it out.  And then I hemmed and hawed about going on the run or running home to throw the phone in rice (picked up the silica beads tonight- figured they couldn't hurt). I decided I had to go for the run or I would just be really ticked and depressed and if I ran at least I would have those endorphins. I ran about two miles then worry over having to buy a new phone sent me back to my car and home to bury the phone in rice.

I will admit to being very bad and turning on the phone every couple of hours to see how/if it was working and it seems to be progressing nicely with more of the various applications and functions working each time I turn it on. Fingers crossed that it will continue on that path... and if it does die that it will be nice enough to hang on until after payday :)
And my really stupid (and funny) moment of the day yesterday- topping the whole dropping the phone in water- was when I went to take these pictures and I looked around for my phone for a minute... before the duh moment when I realized that the camera was in the rice.  It was a very pretty moment.