We'll Call It the "Special K"

It's October First, which means that it is now okay to acknowledge that it's Autumn. Hello, Autumn. I love you.

I know we are ten-odd days into the season already, but some part of my insides refuses to acknowledge its presence until October arrives. Perhaps it's because those first ten-odd days don't look a whole lot different than the thirty or so before them. It also might be because, once Labor Day hits, my life becomes one big blur and I forget to pay attention for a little while. But right about now is when the foliage begins to change in my neck of the woods - and since I am quite literally surrounded by those woods, I wake up.

"Pretty!" I say to myself. And I am right.

Autumn also means that I have to take my running inside. It's now pitch black out almost until school bus time (Hello, 7:05 school bus. I love you.). I'm not one hundred percent on this, but I'm fairly sure that if I were to run in the dark and encounter a bear or other woodland dwelling wildlife that had not yet had its breakfast, my failure to return home might make a couple of little girls I know cry. This is a shame - the not running outside part, I mean. The good news is that I got a truly kick ass new treadmill about a month ago that - in addition to allowing me to watch movies while I run - has also made me a little less stupid.

In the roughly year and a half that I have been running on a consistent basis, I have graduated from huffing and puffing through the shortest imaginable session to running four miles a few days a week. I only know that it's four miles, mind you, because I drove the route first and measured out a circular mile that I can run four times. It's important that you know that.

Anyway, I began to picture myself running longer and longer distances, even someday completing a marathon. I wondered how one trains for a marathon. I thought it might make sense to try out some road races first. So I signed up for my first 5k, which takes place in about three weeks. Then I wondered how one trains for a 5k.

Luckily, my kick ass new treadmill has an "events" button with programs for 5k, 10k, half- and full marathon. How convenient. This is where the story takes an embarrassing turn. I decided to give the 5k program a whirl after giving myself the following pep talk: "This won't be so bad. How much harder can it be to run a 5k than it's been to run four miles every other day? I can so do this."

Well, yeah, dumb ass. Last time I checked, 3.1 miles was less than 4 miles. I'm telling you, sometimes I just don't know how I've made it this far in life.

This awakening naturally made me completely doubt that I knew what I was doing at all - like maybe I was even running wrong, maybe putting one foot in front of the other on a repetitive basis was completely loony - so I did what I always do when I confront my own stupidity. I read three books about how to run. It turns out that the "one foot in front of the other" method is cool...but the four miles every time I run? Not cool. Who knew?

I am now on what I think is a sensible running plan, and looking forward to completing my first 5k. I hope there isn't an IQ test at registration.