I am running again.

I am so stinking excited to be running again, finally. I'm trying to force myself to ease back into it. On Tuesday, I ran 2 miles of the 4 that I was supposed to do. I ran very slowly, and I ran for 1 min at 4, walked for 3 mins at 3. I hate how slow I'm going, but it's much better than not running at all. The hamstring hurt a little bit on Wednesday, but it feels completely fine today. Once I'm completely back into running, I'm going to find some hamstring-strengthening exercises to do. I also need to work on my core.

Here's my running updates:

8/14/12: (Tuesday)
Stats: 2.01 miles in 38:38. Ran 1 min at 4.0, walked 4 mins at 3.0 to ease Sammy the Hammy back into running. (Scheduled to run 4 miles). Watched Grimm.

8/18/12: (Saturday)
Stats: 3.14 miles in 50:01. Ran 2 mins at 4.5, walked 3 mins at 3.5. Scheduled to run 6 miles. Watched Grimm again. Still trying to finish up last season. Proud of myself for not giving into going faster than I should when a guy started running sprints on the treadmill in front of me. My mind was screaming "I can go faster than this, honest," but I managed to avoid kicking up the speed. Yay for willpower.

The plan is to do 3/4 of the mileage I'm supposed to do this week (I did half last week). So I will 3 miles instead of 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday. I don't know if I'll try to go faster, but I will do 3 mins running, 2 walking (or more walking, if needed). I'm supposed to run a 5K race in lieu of my long run on Saturday, but I'm going to run 5 miles instead. Then next week, I'll try to do the full mileage for the week, and hopefully be back on track.

Here's a pic of me prior to running on Saturday. I think this is likely what I'll wear in the half in Oct. I was comparing it to my before pics here. A friend said that she can see that I've increased my muscle mass, but I'm not sure. I've been doing strength training/weights for 3 months now, but I'm still not really happy with how I look. I realize how weird that sounds, believe me. I understand that I am quite thin, and in better shape than a lot of people. But I can still find a lot of things to pick apart. Sigh.

But hey! I'm running again, and that's reason to celebrate. 48 days left until the half.