ding dong's big adventure

I have been getting so many supportive emails from a lot of my loyal friends and blog readers, THANKS!! A lot of you are asking how I came to get into running- and I have to say reading this book 'The Courage To Start' by John Bingham was SO helpful. It is a great book, I highly recommend it! If you are looking to get in shape, or just take better care of yourself- I have learned a few nuggets of wisdom that I would love to pass on, after this little story...
So Tuesday was a running day and I decided that to keep things fresh I would run in a new neighborhood. There is this pretty boulevard in West Hartford I have driven by my whole life and never gone down, so I decided I would run down it before driving down it, sounds all noble, right. So I park nearby, start running, have my big moment all early in my run- wow, this street is nice, nice Tudor style houses, pretty landscaping, yadda yadda. So then I start taking a left here, a right there, a curve here a curve there and before I know it I am super lost! The streets aren't in a grid system, for one and the street names are like 'Cliffmore' 'Edge of the World Be Careful Running on This Crazy Street' 'It's All UpHill' crap like that. Yeah, HILLS galore! I ended on Mountain Road and had to stop and really think about where I was before I ran in the total wrong direction. So, 46 minutes later I got back to my car. But it was fun. Seriously. I totally meant to run that long.

OK, so here is some advice:

- Have supportive people in your life

- Create a goal, no matter how small you may think it is- mine right now is to finish the 5K on 12/9 and to run a 12:30/ mile pace. I did a 12:59/ mile pace for the last one, so shaving 29 seconds off per mile is kind of big.

- Make a good work out music mix- THIS IS KEY!! I will post some of mine, I had a killer one on today that just kept me SO motivated, it was great

- Really look at yourself / or hang out with a ton of photographers (honestly this is probably what kicked my butt into gear the most- how often do you truly sit and check yourself out? I mean, honestly. I had SO many pictures taken of me and posted for the world to see that I wasn't necessarily psyched about. But the reality is too bad for me! That is what I look like and this is what everyone sees when they see me- if I didn't like it I needed to do something about it)

- Have fun doing it, whatever 'it' is. Otherwise, what's the point?

- Use technology! There is a cool site walkjogrun.net that tracks your routes for you and tells you how far you have gone. Or you can get all fancy and get one of those Nike shoe hoo has. Can you say 'Christmas present'

- Run with your iPhone- I know, I know- screw me, right. But really. Music, access to 911 if I get hurt, MAPS, a phone to breathe heavily into, I can trade some stocks as well, Text people... it was awesome.