Half Marathon-One Month To Go.

Yeah, I know, it's been a while.  But now I have a pressing need to write, and a pressing reason to.  I'll be running a half marathon in a month, and I figured updating this thing daily will help keep me accountable to my training and to my writing, which I've vowed to do more often.  There's lots of reasons for both of these, mainly because I'm going through a pretty difficult personal time (which no, I will not be elaborating on here, or most places for that matter) and now that I'm too old and have too much to do to deal with hangovers, drinking it away isn't an option.

So I'm going to take another path I've used in the past-exercise myself to exhaustion.  I'll be updating this daily (I hope) but not posting the links, so check back every so often.

I signed up for this race months ago, because I need something to train for to keep me on track.  I've run on and off my whole life, it seems like.  My mom used to kick us out of the house in our Keds to "go run a few laps" which, I think, was less about her concerns about our health and more about the fact that she had four kids and wanted us out of the house before she fucking killed one of us.  I've never been that fast, and in the past few years I've packed on a bit of weight, so I sign up for races.  My diet and training have been hit or miss, but I decided with one month to go, I could do a lot of cleaning up in both areas.

That brings me to the first piece of advice I'd have-don't radically change your diet one day before you're scheduled for your first 10 mile run in....probably 8 years.  Or else you too will utter the phrase "Keep your phone near you, because I haven't ruled out shitting my pants."  Sure, more vegetables are great, but any diet change has the potential to wreak havoc on your digestive system, as it did mine.

After those issues were resolved I threw on my running clothes and shoes, strapped on the iPhone, loaded up the Map My Run app, and started a podcast.  Those things are a lifesaver-Aisha Tyler's Girl on Guy is about the perfect length.  And is not sexual, though it sounds it.  (I guess this could be a plus or a minus, depending on your taste.)

The run itself went pretty well, though towards the end I got pretty anxious to hear my app say "Distance, X miles"  to tell me I was actually progressing and not running backwards.  Like I said, I'm not fast.  And I may have shrieked "SAY TEN MILES, YOU CUNT!"  towards the end to the automated voice.  But I  only said it in my head.  I think.

Now I'm on the couch with sore feet and Richard Pryor's Live on Sunset Strip playing, and I'm planning on being asleep before the credits roll.  More tomorrow, when I will, no doubt, be too sore to sit on the toilet.

Hey, I keep it sexy.