Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying 'I will try again tomorrow'.

I ran a marathon once.  It was a long time ago and during the time I was training, I ran 22 miles, 18 miles, 16 miles... lots of long distances regularly.  I liked it.  I had friends who ran and I looked forward to my long runs on Saturday mornings.  A group of us would all get together at a park in DC, where I lived, and start out together.  Then, my friend Lara and I would break off and run the whole way together.  She had a really steady beat, almost like a song, and I could run for hours with her and not even notice much time had gone by.

After I finished the marathon, I finished running.  I moved on to other things, as is typical with me, always up for new challenges and learning new things.  I got married and had a baby, got divorced and then started Crossfitting. Which has been my favorite exercise by far, over all my years of working out.  And if you've been following along, you know I had a slap tear repair and am now 8 weeks into recovery and I won't be cleared to crossfit for quite a while.  But I can run!  So I pulled out my old 'running motivation' and dusted it off to see if there is anything left there.

Since I love a good gadget and was in need of some super motivation, I looked into different running tracking options. The Garmin was a neat option - I had one back in the day but now they are so much better with heart rate monitoring and GPS combinations.  The Garmin 305 seems like a good option and I liked the fact that my friends (who are great runners) can send me workouts that they have used on their Garmins.  The price of $130 seemed cheap enough but I wasn't sure it would give me 'spunk' to keep running.

I also liked the idea of the Nike+, which is a little chip you put on your shoe and it syncs up with my iphone.  I downloaded the Nike+ GPS app - which was free for the Nike+ anniversary - and ordered my chip for $28.  This seemed like a better option for me since at this point, I'm not running any marathons.  My runs will probably max out at 5 or 6 miles and what I'm looking for is a distance tracker and some motivation.  The Nike+ syncs up with Facebook and when I start running, friends can 'Like' it and I hear cheers and a roaring crowd as I run along.  Really fun!  It tells me every time I hit 1/2 mile mark and so it keeps me moving along.  When you are getting sluggish or need a boost, you hit the 'power song' button and it gives you a great song off your ipod library so you can kick it into high gear.  Fun!

So, I got my chip and have run the past few days. I travel for work, and it's well over 100* around here, so I ran inside on the treadmill. My Nike+ had an treadmill option and it worked just fine.  After 2 days of running...... and of course doing abs and jumping air squats just because it's as close to crossfit as I can get...... I am SORE sore. After many months of not being able to work out, this was a real challenge. My miles were slow but I just kept plugging along and decided not to worry about being aerodynamic!  My goal is to get moving again and it felt GREAT to be sweating again!

I've been thinking about looking for a goal... a 5k to reach for.  Adam commented on my last post with a great website to find postings for races and I've seen a few other sites out there.  I think for now I'm going to run for me, with no pressure to do something in a big group.  The bit I have run has made my shoulder pretty sore and I am afraid of getting bumped around in a group... but later on I will be all over it!

I have certainly learned to celebrate the small victories over the past few months.  I think lots of people would have taken this opportunity to just stop working out all together..... hang it up and say I'm getting older. But I  know, from experience it is much easier to deal with the pain of discipline than it is the pain of regret.

So, in the end, it looks like I am a runner again...

-CFPRC  (CrossFit Paleo Running Chick)