Your weekly fun fun run roundup - or 22 miles on the ol' asics

In brief: Nine miles -> strength -> five miles -> three miles -> five miles and strength and I'm one mile closer to ... well more mileage, I guess. One mile closer to running a marathon if I endeavored to do so over the period of about a week with many breaks included? Ambitious, yes I know. Ambitiously is just how I roll, afterall: I didn't go to law school for nothin' you know?*

*editor's note: I actually went to law school to be barraged by helpful career services emails about how employers no longer want anything to do with me and are pulling out of OCI like anthropomorphic rats with adorable little life jackets fleeing the Titanic, but that Denny's will likely still be hiring next summer unless the recession continues. That and all the complementary coffee mugs we got during orientation last year.

This week was an interesting mix of last week's easy and other weeks' slog. I've yet to reach the kind of mileage where I hit that legendary runner's wall, but I frequently come across something of a rusty door in my first ten to twenty minutes. It can be a little annoying, because it's hard to guage if it's symptomatic of overtraining or simply a psychological barrier mixed with maybe less pleasant weather or other external conditions that require a little push to get motivated.

I will say that if f I'm freshly rested, I can start running and realize to my utter surprise I've been doing so for forty minutes without so much as a creak, but the closer I get to overtraining, the heavier that door becomes. This week, it's been kind of rough starting, not reaching that magical moment of "I could run forever!" until about two miles in. But, as I implied, the weather has been the sort that inspires yearnings for hot cocoa and flannel pajamas over gatorade and sneakers.

As far as motivation goes, I've finally managed to find good headphones! Now if only I could find my arm-thingy to hold my player again; shoving the player into my sports bra, sexy as it might sound, is not entirely optimal. These earbuds, in addition to making an adorable little heart in repose, hang off my earlobe. This feature blessedly lessens the frequency with which I have to balance running with attempting to retrieve an errant earbud as it wildly trounces about my body - earbud poi, I like to call these moments. The buds are also foam instead of plastic, which is a mixed blessing. It does mean that sound leaks a little more. Then again, it means I can actually hear what's happening outside of my happy little mp3 world, which I'm told is a safe sort of thing. Also mixed is the fact that foam absorbs sweat like nobody's business - ucky when you put your headphones on and they're damp with cold sweat, but rather nice for preventing the ever revolting sensation of sweat dripping out of the ear canal (which always makes me think of blood which freaks me out which... well, not feeling that is a good thing, basically).

I know a lot of people have mixed feeling about running with music, and I definitely understand this. At least once a week, I manage to forget an essential part of my mp3 player and go without. There's something to be said for the experience of tuning into your body and the world around. There's also something to be said for the motivational powers of a good tune, though. Even if, yes, the wrong tune can completely demotivate and/or mess with my pacing (and boy does it). I'm currently compiling my fool proof run playlists. This has been my secondary "project" that keeps running interesting while I'm pushing at that creaky rusty door - it's simple, but I'm taking note of how different songs affect my pacing, my percieved level of effort, my motivation, and my technique. My general conclusions are pending and no doubt will be eviscerated via blog within the next week or so.