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I'm a fan of the Pasta Queen blog, formerly known as "Half of Me." Originally, it was a weight-loss log and culpability mechanism; after reaching her goal (more or less, but that's one of the things I like about her), Pasta Queen diverged into more personal entries about chronic headaches, branching out into self employment, and her cats.

I'll admit that her casual, anecdotal style, which (in spirit, at least) reminds me of my own, was one of my motivating factors in starting to blog. She's also the reason I decided to try out the Couch to 5K; after training for and completing a half marathon (horrified gasp!) as part of her weight loss routine, she, well, I'm going to say "took a break" from running long enough that she began to struggle even on short trail jogs. After running a half marathon (horrified gasp!), she had no shame in partaking in a training program designed chiefly for total beginners. So why not me?

Anyway, there's all that, but mostly, I mention her because she did an entry a while back (that I can't find. I can find more cat pictures?) on the music she listens to while working out. She mentioned a preference for fast beats, sneaking oversized headphones into her races, and a few programs that will automatically adapt one's playlist to match one's pace.

Yesterday, during my 2.75 mile jog (because I ran that far, people! That's 2.75 miles, jot it down somewhere so you can compliment me later), I attempted to listen to music for a while, and absolutely hated it. The rhythm! The pacing! They did not line up in perfect symmetry! No, this did not do. And no, I am not saying that this was the first time I tried listening to ANYTHING on my run.

Normally, I'm very happy with NPR.

Podcasts, specifically. "This American Life" is my favorite, but I'm also partial to "This Week in Food," "Story of the Day," and recently, "Radio Lab." I'm also giving "Planet Money" a stab, in the hopes that a twenty minute broadcast of blog post-esque analogy-based humor will make up for a twenty-five year run of totally failing to understand economics.

It all makes perfect sense to me. If I'm going to run to escape from wallowing in thought, why not upload something new to think about for when I'm done? The lack of steady beat in talk radio lets me work out my own pace, too - and, while I might need to rethink this once the weather grows partial to running outside, there's no rush when I'm stuck on a treadmill.

Am I alone here?

Oh, forgot one.

So do I write about the yarn that I need for my current project, and tossed who-knows-where-not-me? (After a two hour hunt peppered by deep breathing sessions?)

Do I write about comics, which I've yet to read this week because the comic shop is out of my way?

Or...

"And jogging blog! Cooking-knitting-comics-jogging blog!"

So said my mother, and, oh, yeah. I'm doing the Couch-to-5K.

The Couch-to-5K Running Plan is... you know what? Quotation marks make everything easier:

"You should ease into your running program gradually. In fact, the beginners' program we outline here is less of a running regimen than a walking and jogging program. The idea is to transform you from couch potato to runner, getting you running three miles (or 5K) on a regular basis in just two months."

I'm in the middle of week 7 now - that's three days of 2.5 miles with no walking - and I have to say, this plan is certainly working out. I particularly like it compared to my plan from when I tried running two years ago, which consisted of... oh, that's right, no plan at all. My father and I walked together, and he would tell me to run ahead and come back. As soon as I got back, he'd do so again. I wound up jogging up and down hills, wearing the first pair of shoes I found, barely stretching, and a bit less than a month after starting I was running every other day without walking breaks.

A bit more than a month after starting, my Achilles' tendons began to ache and tear so badly that I limped for weeks. Oops! Dad blamed my lack of a thirty-second warm up stretch. I blamed him.

Turns out we were both... well, I was probably premature in my analysis, and he was only about a third right. This time around, I'm spending five-to-ten minutes stretching before and after each jog; I'm running mostly on a level treadmill; and, in sharp contrast to some well argued theories, I'm trusting my ankles to sneakers designed to ameliorate pronation. I'm also only going three days a week, and repeating days of the program that I couldn't finish the first time. If my initial attempts were foiled by running too far, too fast, too soon, too often over too difficult terrain, then maybe - just maybe - my natural tendency to favor doomsday will at last be trumped by logic. After all, I've made it almost two months so far.

By the way - when my brother got married three weeks ago, I wore high heels to the wedding for one of the first times in my life. Gorgeous shoes; sore calves. I limped for a week, and worried profusely about how my regimen would be affected. Wonder of wonders - after an extra long stretch, I succeeded in jogging the full session without a twinge. The walking intervals were torture, but it appears that jogging really does rely on different muscles. See, kids? Physiology actually has real-world parallels!