shamrock shuffle

with the bribery of free registration, i signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle. the last time i tortured myself with this race was in 2004. wow. that's a long time. 8 years. anyway, it was chock full of runners and the first mile was walking (which was fine with me, not so much for my running partner, who was annoyingly gazelle-like), and the bag pick-up at the end totally sucked. plus, it's not for any charity or anything like that, so giving $35 to a bank just seemed stupid. also, i wasn't training as hard as i should have been for that 8k and i just about crapped out. i think that i was getting sick, because i was out for the count the next two days.

so needless to say, this isn't my favorite race. but a friend gave me a coupon code for free registration. FREE! that means i get to keep my (now) $45 and still get a free t-shirt. and maybe i'll even run it. heh-heh.

to prepare, i have planned out my runs from now until April 10, race day. i find it really appealing to plan work outs, but i find it very very very hard to stick to those plans. this plan is really very easy: 1 mile three times a week, 1.5 miles three times a week, 2 miles three times a week, etc. this should get me up to the required 5 miles.

but it's not the mileage that i hate. it's the TIME. i am so slow that it will probably take me an hour to run 5 miles. if i'm lucky. being on a treadmill is so unsufferably boring when you're in a gym. i think i just need to resign myself to that time and be done with it. maybe a few audiobooks will help me get through this.

wish me luck.