Resolutions

New Year's is supposed to be a time for resolutions. In the past, I've made my share and this year is no different. Except, this year I'll be more than shocked if I can keep them. Usually, there's at least a glimmer of hope but this year is starting out with my mood somewhere in the vicinity of the toilet. I'm not sure why. And I don't like it one bit.

Just like everyone else on the planet, one of my resolutions revolves around "getting in shape". However, this year I'm going for broke. I AM GOING TO RUN A 5K. What? Stop laughing!! That's the ONLY resolution that I know for sure is going to be - barring serious injury or illness, of course (**knocks on wood furiously**). I started running sometime in November and then the holidays happened. I should note a couple of things here: 1) I don't run unless something big AND scary is chasing me. Big? Fine, I'll walk a bit faster. Scary? Maybe a light jog. But only big AND scary makes me run, which means I have no idea what got into my shorts to make me even want to try. Probably it's the fact that I'm going to turn 4-0...eventually. and 2) I don't exercise during the holidays. I take a week off at Thanksgiving and some time off at Christmas. This year, my Christmas break revolved around some inflamed cartilage under my breastbone that hurt like a son-of-a-gun when I moved my right arm. Ever try to run without moving your right arm? Exactly.

My big "goal" is Halloween. The boys' school just started their Great Pumpkin Race this past year and it was a huge (fund-raising) success. Oldest Boy's best bud's mom (didja get that?) helps to coordinate it. And she's also an Ironman Triathlete - which means I might feel (vastly) inferior in the athletics department, but I'm also going to tap her as a resource for my new resolution. I have a lot of questions but mainly I want to know if I can train exclusively on a treadmill for this type of run. Anybody know?

Mr. MOTH even got on board when he bought me a sports doo-hickey (yes, that's the technical term) for my iPhone so that I can listen to tunes while I run. OK, this may have been inspired by the fact that I knocked my iPhone off of the treadmill more than once while running and it was hanging precariously by my ears, but I'm going with "encouraging" instead. However, the doo-hickey he bought was for an iPhone 3 and we have a "4" so I have to wait until the back-ordered version gets here sometime in February. (Anybody have a "3" that would use this? Because he can't return it...). Yesterday, I used his iTouch for my run...

Which brings me to my only other resolution that I hope to keep: Learn something new every day and blog about it. What did I learn yesterday? Turn off the "shake to shuffle" feature before running while listening to an iPod. I would just start to sing along (in my head, of course) and the song would change. And again. And again. I had 45 minutes of music loaded and I think I went through the whole line-up in 25! Lesson learned.