Happy Monday, internet world!  While I’m not necessarily glad that the holiday season is over, I am glad that the crazy weeks are over and that I can get back to a normal schedule.  I start my final semester of undergrad on Wednesday so I will definitely enjoy being on a set schedule for the next four months.

I’m not going to pretend I was perfect during the holidays.  I went to parties and gatherings and yes I ate.  If I wanted a red velvet cupcake, then I ate it.  And I didn’t even feel bad about it.  Backsliding a little bit did put back on a few pounds, but I know that being back on a normal schedule this week will put me back in a good place.

This past week I logged a total of 25 miles on the road.  Some of those are walking, some of those are racing, and some of those are running intervals.  But a total of 25 miles isn’t too shabby.  I followed the training plan almost to a T this week, just moved a few days around while still getting the intended workouts complete.

In addition to my training plan, I’m also part of a group that wants to “streak”.  The only rule is that you have to cover one mile per day and doesn’t matter if you run or walk.  I’m on day 7 and intend on making it the entire 365 (Lord willing).  On Friday, I just didn’t want to run/walk/crawl/anything.  Period.  I didn’t want to move my body. After a very late afternoon nap, I woke up and decided to put my big girl panties on and get out there.  It was dark and drizzling so I didn’t want to go down to the bike trail.  What’s a girl to do?  I just strapped on the Garmin and decided to just walk/run back and forth in my driveway.  Even though I probably looked stupid out there, I still got it done.  3 miles is 3 miles, no matter how it gets done.  

On Sunday the training plan called for a 4 mile run.  Yikes.  My boyfriend and cousin wanted to go crawdad hunting so they took me four miles up the road from where they would be at so that I could just run straight to them.  The entire four miles was through the  Great Smoky Mountains National Park and completely along the river.  So peaceful.  While I didn’t run the entire way, I attempted to run .10 mile then walk .10 mile.  I did pretty good at sticking to this interval.  The goal was to maintain a 12:30min/mile which would be 50 minute effort.  I was spot on!  But most of all I was just glad to be done.  It is slightly frustrating that I used to be able to cover this distance over 10 minutes faster than I did yesterday, but that’s just where I’m at and I have to be okay with that.  Time will make me faster.  Effort will make me faster.   

Right now, I’m happy with the progress I’ve made.  I’m moving right along and learning to love exercise.  If I can just isolate my clean eating, then I would be unstoppable.  The diet portion will take longer for me to get accustomed to, but it will happen.  For today, I’m proud of where I’m at and where I am going.