WALK is not a four-letter word

Last night, I began my marathon training by taking my adorable dog on a brisk 30-minute walk.

OK, I know what you’re thinking. “Heather. Be real. You’re going to RUN A MARATHON. You can’t seriously think you’re going to get there by walking your 10-pound dog?”

Au contraire, my friend.

The school of thought for beginning runners is that they need to start with a fairly easy schedule of walking/running combos, and then work their way up the ladder. This way, they don’t over-exert themselves, get bored and drop out, injure themselves, etc.

The first two months of my training involves quite a bit of walking. Most weeks, there’s at least one day that is a 30-minute walk. Every single run for my first eight weeks is a 30-minute run/walk interval training deal. But I’m pretty excited about this. It will really ease me into things, I think.

To help countdown my interval training, I bought a totally hideous sports watch last night:

Then I irritated the bejesus out of myself, my dog, and my roommate as I tried to figure it out. It’s easy to use, but I’m annoyed because it beeps every 30 seconds for the last three minutes of the countdown. I really wanted to buy this really sleek, totally awesome-looking, pink Ironman (as in the competition, not the movie) watch, but it was like $70. I chose the Armitron watch because it was on sale, even if it is ridiculously huge for my wrist. At least I can see the numbers.
I also made some killer 30-minute mixes for my iPod. My roommate’s boyfriend downloaded some Lady Gaga for me. Fabulous, because I can’t get that song out of my head. Here is a mock-up of one of my mixes, just to give you an idea of how schizophrenic my musical inclinations run:

The Old Apartment by Barenaked Ladies
The Sound of Settling by Death Cab for Cutie
Womanizer by Britney Spears
Sound System by Operation Ivy
One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces by Ben Folds Five
West End Riot by The Living End
Somebody Told Me by The Killers
SexyBack by Justin Timberlake
Helicopter by Bloc Party
I Get a Kick Outta You by Frank Sinatra

And to everyone who has better taste in music than me (aka everyone on the planet): please refrain from mocking my use of the word “killer” to describe mixes such as these, which are full of totally out-of-date songs. The last CD I bought was Panic! At the Disco’s Pretty.Odd. so I’m a little behind on the times.

Tonight is my first night of “real” running. Here’s hoping I don’t get blown over by a tornado.