C25K Week 2

I used to think all of the talk about wicking shirts and other workout gear was just a pile of consumerist crap designed to gouge the poor would-be athlete into thinking they had to have clothing like an olympic sprinter, but after last night's run in 94 degree heat and near 100 percent humidity, I will very soon be the proud owner of some of that stuff, consumerist culture be damned! By the time I finished my half hour the shirt I had on was soaked and it felt like I was trying to run in a soaked bathrobe.

Apart from the suffocating humidity it was a good run. I made a new iPod playlist for this week and since it seemed to cut off after 30 minutes I decided to make that my run, rather than 20. Truth be told I find myself making excuses to run a little extra every night. I'm trying to hold myself back, not because I'm afraid I'm really a gifted runner (ha ha ha!), but because I've read a lot about injuries happening early on if you push too hard and I'm not about to risk that. I'm already enough of a risk to myself, what with my barely picking my feet up off the ground when I run, and going slow enough that moss could grow on the bottom of my shoes, I certainly don't need any other problem.

When I came home, Dad was there since Sis & BIL don't have any hot water. We were talking about something and he told a story about one of my sister's old boyfriends. At the end he said something to the effect of "and I told the boy that if he couldn't iron his own clothes he was never going to be able to catch a woman like that." My sister is "Like That". She was once actually mistaken for Cindy Crawford on a beach, because CC was supposed to be vacationing in the area. Normally when I talk about my sister someone says "oh yeah, my sister is really pretty too, and I'm the ugly one" but I don't mean that my sister is pretty. I mean she passed up pretty in 7th grade and after that won modeling contracts. She's gorgeous. And of course logically I understand that my Dad has to know this, but it was still very odd for me to hear him praise her in a way I know he wouldn't praise me. I know he thinks I'm nice looking, but I doubt he's sitting around talking about how universally understood my gorgeousness is. It didn't necessarily hurt my feelings, but I noticed it and for a brief moment I was flashed back to my senior year in high school, when just being in the same house as my sister was painful for my self-esteem and sense of self worth. And none of it was her fault, of course, but that didn't make it any easier to bear - in fact it made it worse. For a moment last night I thought dammit, I want to get to a point where I'm healthy and look so good that he'll think a man had better get himself in order to deserve me. The feeling passed pretty quickly, but it left me slightly off balance for a few minutes.

I wonder if I should be doing some kind of core/strength workouts on the days I don't run?