the all inclusive jogging update

Meet Charlie. He's one of the best dogs in the world. such a sweet sweet baby. We found him a little over two years ago dirty, skinny, covered in fleas and trying to get into our garbage can. We convinced him to stay long enough to get a bath, a meal and to meet Jack, our dog we found at the Horton Mill Covered Bridge the year before. The two dogs hit it off, so when we couldn't find anyone to claim Charlie we weren't too upset about it because he was already a member of the family.
One of Charlie's favorite things to do (beside sit in your lap) is just to trot around. He likes going on walks. Friday night I took him with me on my jog around downtown. Jack went on Wednesday, so I figured it was Charlie's turn. Charlie is a bad jogging companion. He does the usual dog stuff like wanting to stop and sniff, but he also likes to zig zag in front of you. No matter how little slack I gave him on his leash he still wanted to trot all around me.

About mile 1 into my jog, Charlie, darts in front of me while a car and its headlights come glaring down on us. I tripped over Charlie and fell into the bright light. Luckily, I was not hit by the car. my knee was throbbing and tingly, so I hobbled home with my trot dog.

4 days later, the scab is much smaller and the two bruises are much larger and darker. lovely, huh? I had to take a day off, but now there's only the occasional tenderness when I hit or brush up against something with my knee. And that's my first jogging injury, brought to you by the cuddly Charlie Dog.

Another possible obstacle to my first 5k race was my iPod and iTunes. I created a new superb 5k play list. All the songs were 135-145 beats per minute, keeping me at a nice steady pace. I had about half of the songs already on iTunes and bought the rest. I made the play list almost a month ago, but I rarely sync my iPod these days, so the old play list was still on Fergus (yes, that's the name of my iPod). Monday, I downloaded the latest version of iTunes then tried to sync my iPod.

no dice. it just charged. so then I go through all the Help advice. restart computer, in disk mode, won't come out of disk mode, not showing up in My Computer, USB cord works. blah. I definitely did not want to uninstall itunes and reinstall. I was starting to have mini panic attacks about how this would ruin my race mojo and other none sense thoughts. finally, yesterday I was able to successfully put Fergus in disk mode and take it out and BINGO sync. glory, glory. I was giddy. now that's one less thing I have to worry about.

Sunday night, I completed the first day of week 8. I had a 5 minute warm up walk and then jogged for 27 minutes. and I did it. I jogged for 27 minutes (with Jack, as Charlie has been banned from all future jogs). When I jogged up to the porch, I announced I was back from my jog and I finally feel like a runner. I finally feel like I'm not just "training" but I am actually "a runner" wow. it was liberating. I really feel accomplished. For someone who in the past has never run more than a mile, so feel like "a runner" is amazing.

Tonight I'm going to try out said play list and see how it goes. The HYT 5k is this Saturday. I'm excited. trying to plan what to wear that will be most conducive to jogging with regards to the weather and time of day. making sure Fergus is completely charged. I'm ready. almost. I know I'm going to be super nervous/anxious/excited come Saturday morning. Bring it.