09/14/2010 (4.5 mi, 10:43 pace)

My Tues/Thurs morning runs have been increased to 4.5 miles....so I needed to find a new route to run. New streets, new shadows, more hills, LONGER hills.....and my first dark morning run since wiping out. All in all, it went pretty well. I walked more than I wanted....one section was missing a sidewalk (under repair) so I was forced to run in the hospital lawn, just beside where the sidewalk normally resides.

(I'm not a trail runner.)

I also noticed that my "pot hole nemesis" has been filled in.

One small pothole in the city...one small pothole along that entire stretch of road....and someone stopped to fix it.

I'm convinced they read my post describing my injury, caused by that one little pot hole, and immediately rushed out to have it fixed.

Yeah, I'm pretty important 'round these parts.

(snicker)

If there was anyone awake when I ran past, they would have been startled to hear me laughing and cheering when I ran by the repair. :-)

Side Note:

Between the blogs I read, the posts I make on DailyMile, and some friends on Facebook....it seems the 30-Day Shred is becoming very popular (again?).

So....I did what every career woman, who is forced to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours a day, does. I googled it.

I found reviews, I found preview videos, and I even found a Japanese YouTube-like site that had the whole video posted for my perusal.

It looked pretty cool, so I emailed myself the link home to try it out one night and see how I liked it.

On the way home, I stopped at Target and bought it.

Yeah, I'm silly that way. But something about spending my $9 on the physical (and legal) copy, made my motivation that much stronger.

In the checkout, the cashier looks at me, looks at my video, then throws (throws!!) it into a bag. "Girl, you don't need this!"

She caught me off guard.

It was almost as though she were upset I was buying it.

I smiled and told her thank you.

"No really, you don't need this. If I was lucky like you, and was blessed with that figure...mmm hmmm....I'd be rockin' it all over town."

I laughed and told her that I wasn't "blessed" with anything. I've worked pretty hard to get to where I am....and have quite a ways to go yet. We talked a little, I thanked her again....and walked to my car with a little extra bounce.

"The shred" was actually quite good. It's only 20 minutes, so you get out of it what you put in. Also, it recommends you start with 3 lb hand weights, and I only had 5's....so I started from day 1 with a little extra challenge for my horribly out of shape upper body. :-)