30 Miles in 30 Days: COMPLETE!

Yay! I did it! After running 4 miles with Caitlin this morning on the Five Mile Trail, I completed 30 miles within 30 days, the Spring Into Fitness Run Challenge through MapMyRun.com.

Good run today. Took us 58 minutes and includes some grueling hills, but we did great. Caitlin finished stronger than I did and kicked the final hill's butt, big time. Good job, Caitlin!

Now, on to training for the 10K and half Pig. No biggie ...

30 In 30 Update: Why I Still Hate Setting Goals

Blah. Yuck. Patooey.

What a terrible run. I just knocked out another 3 miles, bringing me to 26 miles and another 4 days to get 4 more miles in to complete the MapMyRun.com Spring Into Fitness 30 miles in 30 days challenge. (Whew! Mouthful!) I should be knocking out the last 4 on a weekend run, hopefully on Saturday so I have a bit of a buffer in case something goes wrong.

Anyway, today's run was awful, and I have one theory about why part of it sucked so bad. My legs felt like solid, painful rocks from the knees down, fronts and backs and sides. And then my hips ached, probably from compensating for my shins/calves. After the past few runs I've been stretching my legs a little bit, and that probably doesn't seem so odd until you consider that I stopped stretching before and after running back in the summer after reading Jeff Galloway's take on the issue. (Basically, man has been running since there was man. It's a natural motion that our bodies are built to do, so there's no need to stretch. He thinks this applies only to walking and running, not to other physical activity.) I've discovered over the last year that this is a hotly debated issue in the running world and I think I've finally decided where I fall on the spectrum. After the way my legs have been feeling on runs following runs where I stretched afterward (follow that?), I'm not stretching any-friggin-more.

You can't make me.

But I do still want to know what you think about it. Runners, do you stretch? Have you always? Have you tried both stretching and not stretching? I want to hear from those of you who might not yet consider yourselves runners, too.

Lastly, my fundraising plug!

Do you want to run the Cincinnati Flying Pig (Half) Marathon with me on May 1? No?

Do you wish you could? No?

Well, do you want to show your support for a really worthy cause as I trudge 13.1 miles through downtown Cincinnati and Mt. Adams? Have you been looking for a way to give back? Do you have an extra $1, $5, $12, $27, $50 or $3,000 sitting around and you want a place to put it? Now's your chance! Check out this post about my Fernside fundraising efforts and let me know if you'd like to contribute. I'll be collecting pledges until Friday, April 29.

Thank you for your time!

Challenge: 30 Miles In 30 Days

Well, I just signed up for something a little crazy. And it's goal-oriented, too, which is SO not me. The good thing is there isn't anything to lose. If I fail, it's no big deal.

That being said, I'd like to see if I can pull it off. Hopefully it doesn't make me angry or depressed, which happens to me if I start to fail at something. Thus the aversion to goals.

Anyway, here it is:

Banner from MapMyRun.com

I got an email this morning from MapMyRun.com, inviting me to join in the 30 in 30 Challenge. I did some quick math and figured that 30 miles in 30 days is not a whole lot more than I do now. I could totally pull that off, right?

Right.

If the weather cooperates. Unlikely.

If the weather cooperates and I can do another lap on my weeknight parking lot runs and maybe another lap or two on any daytime weekend runs, then yeah, I can do it. But if it snows or gets really cold (like it is right now), I could be out of luck.

Yes, I have a treadmill to fall back onto if the weather gets bad, but there's no way I can go longer on that thing. I hate it so much it's hard for me to stay on it for 20 or 30 minutes, let alone 40 or 50. Gah! Hate it! Patooey!

Oh. Sorry. Focus ...

But then I got to thinking of the positives of the challenge. It could really be a chance to get some longer distances in. I could be ready to fully run a 5K when the first one comes around in March. I could be putting myself in a good position to train for the half-Pig. I could lose some weight. I could get through January a lot faster (only to face friggin' February after that).

Interesting ...

So, despite all those ifs, I went ahead and signed up anyway. I wanted to post about it 1) so you all could check in on me and 2) in case any of you would be interested in the challenge. They have running, walking, cycling, and exercising challenges -- take your pick. Check out the MapMyRun.com NYE Challenges here! If you complete the challenges, you get entered to win stuff. Plus, if you haven't already made use of that website, you need to get on it. It's pretty great, as is its App on the iPhone (and maybe other devices).

So, wish me luck! And please do some anti-snow-and-ice dances/rituals/praying/bargaining. Let's work together to keep winter away, folks!