New month, new goals

My run mileage for January was 43 miles. That's the most I've ever run in a month in my life. This week I was feeling a bit drained, and the runs were definitely a little harder. My schedule right now is that my long runs are Monday, Wednesday is hills with a steady pace mile cool-down and Friday is a 5K or so. Tues and Thurs are strength with light cardio like the elliptical trainer. This week starts the tempo and speed work on the schedule from Runner's world. Monday is also going to be my first 10K ever. I'm very excited, although hanging out on the treadmill for 66 minutes sounds incredibly tedious. At least I'll have the iPod and random elevation program. My goal for February is 50 miles, that's an average of 4.1 miles per run, a lofty goal for me but I think I can do it.

The good news this week was that my weigh-in yesterday was 155.6. That's five pounds down since I started and I'm settled back into a more mindful eating routine. I think that's really the key for me, I don't need to write out everything I eat, I just need to be aware, as if I am going to keep track. That, and a 700 calorie workout Monday and 400 Wednesday and Friday certainly help.

Friday morning's run was the toughest, as I had a flashback to only a few month ago when Cutie still wasn't sleeping through the night. Thursday night I went to bed about 10pm, a little later than usual. Then, at 12:30am we were awoken by our dog having a seizure. He's had them before, but we need to sit with him to make sure he doesn't try to get around because he could run into the wall or fall down the stairs. So I was up for a while. Then at 2am, Cutie woke up screaming and I went in to calm her down so I was up a little while then. Finally at 3:15 Hot Wheels came into our room complaining that he'd had a nightmare and since I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep with my dear husband snoring like a chainsaw, I just told him to climb in my bed and I slept in the top bunk until the alarm went off at 4:30. Ugh. I thought about skipping the run entirely and while I'm glad I didn't skip it, I'm lucky that I only tripped once. And I was expecting it might happen so I didn't get hurt. I'm not sure how I survived almost six years without more than maybe a dozen nights of sleep without waking up at least once or twice overnight because someone needed something. But I'm not complaining, I'm just loving my sleep these days!

The week was tough on a couple fronts, I broke my self-imposed rule of not crying at work, fortunately it wasn't a complete breakdown in front of anyone. Trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my life is causing me a bit of stress and while I know that I've got to figure these things out for myself, I'm not used to being at such a loss of direction. I'll get through it and things will be fine I'm sure. Sometimes I just lose sight of that and the stress gets to me.

I'll leave you with a kiss from Cutie, it always brightens my day.