Wussing out

At this point, I don't plan on running the half marathon tomorrow.

I still might -- but I'll have to get better quickly.

The illness that has been going through our family is a bit weird. It affects energy and gives one an iffy stomach, but it's not the type of thing that fully knocks you out.

I ran the marathon (a bit undertrained) with a respiratory infection of some kind; running with tummy trouble is so much less do-able.

Pornography, iPods and illness

Paul beat me home yesterday. When I walked in, he said, "You got some pornography in the mail today."

What are you talking about?!

He was referring to the Anthropologie catalog.

"OK, it's just clothes porn." he admitted.

iPod news: Apple has come out with a new version of the Shuffle, which looks a lot like the old one and might work with the running headset I loved so much. It also might be way too small.

I ordered one for both Paul and me -- it's less expensive than the older models on eBay and has some nicer features.

Illness: My rambunctious 6-year-old put himself to bed last night at 6:30. Which is unheard of. He's sick. If I come down with it, I won't do the half marathon on Sunday. So I'm lying low in hopes of escaping his bug.

A late start, but the fog helped

I was messing around in the house, so I didn't get out the door by 7, as I like to. I probably could have talked myself out of running at all. (I'm good at that lately, as is well-documented.)

But I looked out the window and I saw my dear friend Fog.

The cool air outside assured me I really had no excuse.

Even though it was after 8 by the time I left, the weather was cool enough that I could easily handle a 35-minute run. The sun was coming out by the end.

I did only 35 minutes because of time constraints -- I have to take a kid to his job, get groceries and get ready for the beach -- as well as the desire to baby the knees just a little bit.

Trashing my knees

I managed to screw up my knees on Sunday. Not by running, but by going for a 90-minute walk with Paul while wearing inappropriate footwear.

No, it wasn't my heels, which probably would've been better. It was some flat sandals.

Lesson learned.

IPod lust

I can find the 2nd generation iPod Shuffle on eBay for about $60.

It's also in one of those "claw" machines at a movie theater lobby in Albuquerque.

For $1. Of course, I'm sure it'd take more than one try to get one.

Right now, I'm trying to weigh the likelihood of one of my four little brothers in ABQ winning one for me -- and winning one in fewer than 60 tries between them. I'm tempted to send them some money and have them go at it. The great thing about my brothers is that they'd be completely up for the idea.

The not-so-wonderful part about my iPod lust is that I'm doing a bad thing psychologically regarding it. I equate having that kind of iPod with running well. I can and do run without music, even when I still had the Shuffle. I just (usually) like running more with music. But I'm thinking too much about it.

It's not, frankly, unlike some of the fantasizing I used to do (and sometimes still do) about weight loss. I had ideas of certain things I would do at certain weights. And, for the most part, I did those things.

Now, of course, I think of other goals. The difficult part right now is that a figure like 140 pounds seems just as elusive to me now as 160 pounds did when I weighed 250.