This weekend was all about new running gear. Yay!

By the way, being a member of local running groups really pays off. At any of the running stores around town (Luke’s Locker, Runsport, Fleet Feet), members of HARRA (Houston Area Road Runners Association) get 10% off merchandise and a buttload of other stuff. Discounts can also be had for members of HoustonFit and Power in Motion.

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‘Cause sometimes you feel tired, feel weak,
and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up.
But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength
and just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give up and not be a quitter,
no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse.
- eminem

Although my running-related blog entries have been on the light side, I’m still faithfully chugging along. I did encounter a few unexpected challenges this week, however…..

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The Update: It’s been almost a week since my last blog entry, in which I mentioned receiving some news that had been taking up a bit of mental real estate. As of today, I’m feeling less anxious about what now feels like a much less serious problem, which I suppose is what results from giving something a bit of time, perspective and lots of good wine.

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Just got back from watching an advance screening of Saint Ralph, a story about a boy who tries to win the Boston marathon in exchange for a miracle to save his sick mother. The film plot had obvious appeal, given my current marathon training obsession. Although all the characters were too much charicatures of themselves, and you couldn’t get a grasp of whether the thrust of the film was about Catholicism or the Boston marathon, the film was cute and sweet. On the weepy Kleenex scale of 1 to 3, it was a 1.25. There weren’t enough training-related scenes in the movie, and I wish they had played out the Boston Marathon a bit more. 

The film was shown at Market Street in The Woodlands. I’d only been to The Woodlands once before (it was for a concert way back in my college days….and let’s just say I don’t remember much) so I viewed the excursion as an adventure. Surprisingly, it only took us 30 minutes to get up there. The area around Woodlands Mall and Market Street were very…..woody. One could definitely appreciate how The Woodlands earned its name. In fact, it was very serene and quiet, and I found myself wondering what it would be like to actually live there. Then we arrived at Market Square which was really quaint at first, but then something about it started to feel like we were in one of those Disneyworld planned communities. I can’t quite put my finger on it. [As it turns out, the actual Disney planned community of Celebration, FL has “a unique collection of charming shops and tempting eateries nestled around a dazzling lakeside promenade” called…..MARKET STREET. Coincidence? hmmm……] 

Anyways, I have more updates to come later this week. I’ve been a bit distracted, and need to let things settle down. 

As for running/training, it’s been a great stress reliever. On Monday, we started doing hill work at Allen Parkway…..reeeaaallllly painful by the end (I thought I was going to pass out a few times), but it was a great workout. Still going to pilates, haven’t missed a scheduled run, getting back into my strength training routine, and swam some laps this morning. Ok, swimming laps is reallly hard. Much harder than I thought, yo. But, I’m loving that hour of each day where I can block out everything else.