Week Three: Monday

At the aforementioned Cinco de Mayo menos tres dias party, I spoke with the good Dr. Dre at work. He is the better of the two Jasons at work. I can say this with confidence because I am the other Jason.

He will be running in the TCM (that’s what I imagine the runners call it because turning things into acronyms makes things seem cooler and more exclusive) and although I could not convince him to wait at the end for a couple hours for me to finish so we can cross the finish line together holding hands, he did give me some advice from the Grandmas Marathons that he has run in the past.

My concern was that right now my respiratory system is my greatest challenge. That seems to be improving. I need to make sure that once that is no longer the issue that I am prepared for whatever else may make this a challenge.

He mentioned that the knees can be a huge problem. This concerned me because I am built like a marshmallow on toothpicks and all that weight on the knees may be too much strain. I do not want to end up not being able to run this because I am physically unable to. If I fail at this I want it to be because I am lazy.

He mentioned that shoes are an important element to reducing knee injuries. This freaked me out even more because I am wearing a pair of 3 year old Asics with no support. I will need to get some shoes as soon as possible.

The running went pretty well. I ended up running 10 minutes on the front end which was a little more than a mile. Walked for about ¾ mile and then ran another ½ mile in 5 minutes. Walked a ¼ mile back home for a total of 35 minutes. The goal is still to run 15 minutes straight on Saturday, so I will have to kick it up to 12 minutes on Wednesday. The knees got a little sore at the end, which was probably in my head. The only way to cure imaginary ailments? Buy expensive shoes.