I'm changing the purpose of the blog slightly. I do still intend to complete a marathon at some point within the next few years. However, at my current weight and fitness level, with my current diet, it's just not gonna happen. So, for a time, this will evolve into a weight loss blog of sorts. There will be food journaling, accounts of workouts, analyses of my eating habits, tales of my adventures in cooking for myself, links to health articles I find, etc.

So, to start.

I'm living in Washington, DC for the semester, off-campus. It's a pretty good area for running- lots of wide sidewalks and little parks, and I'm actually pretty close to the Mall. That said, I've actually only been out maybe 5 times the entire semester. I did have a bit of a breakthrough, though. Whenever I read Born to Run, I get so inspired to go running. It seems like it will be the most amazing feeling. Then I get out there, and while I'm jazzed that I actually got my butt out of bed and into my running gear, I'm mainly just going through the paces (as it were). Then, one day, as I was out running home along the Mall, I saw that a light was about to change. Another runner and I both kicked it into high gear and sprinted across the street just in time. I found myself actually giggling out loud as I leapt to the sidewalk on the other side. I figured it out! Before, I was out jogging. Jogging is kind of boring. But in that sprint, not only was I bonding with my fellow runner, but I was actually running. I guess I'd never really run before. Running is AWESOME. Jogging, not so much.

Now, this does present some issues of its own. The greatest of which is my cardiovascular system. It was starting to actually develop with regular use of my bike a year ago, but then some lowlife miscreant STOLE my beautiful precious bike literally the night before I was going to move it inside the dorm. So, no more bike riding for me. And my cardio plummeted. All of which is to say, I can't sustain full-out running for very long. And by very long I mean more than about 25 seconds at a time. Jogging, I could eek out 1 minute if I had to. So it might take a little/lot longer to rebuild my cardio system.

Especially with my general lack of motivation to work out. I made an attempt at fixing this early on in the semester. As I am living off-campus, I have limited access to the gym. If I wanted to trek for 50 minutes to get there, yes, I could use the campus gym, but frankly... no. Just no.

Aaaaand it's 1am, so I'm going to sign off for now, and finish this up tomorrow. Night, y'all!