Running Tools and A New Location

Through Joe Thorn I discovered a very helpful site called MapMyRun which allows you to plot your runs and get a distance for it. I think I mentioned this tool in a previous post. That being said, I discovered something while plotting different runs on it. The block around my mother-in-law’s house is exactly a half-mile. Flat, too. I also discovered the bigger block on which the property actually sits is almost exactly a mile, with hills. Even better, both of these blocks have sidewalks. Hmm, action plan brewing.

I think I might start doing weekend runs at my mother-in-law’s from now on. This would give us (and her) an excuse to let Grace see her grandma on a regular basis, and might even get my wife to walk regularly. Her mother is a walking freak, doing regular 5k walks at least 3 or 4 days a week. I could let the girls go walking while I went off and did my run on my own. Heck, if my brother-in-law is home I might be able to convince him to run with me as well. I wonder if the family that runs together, stays together.

Okay, enough cheese.

The reason I plotted these runs is because after running my apartment loop, I liked it less as a place to start running. Oh, I will still run it, as the hill it sits on would be good for me. But I need something a little more…objective.

After that first actual run, I found myself wondering that night and most of today if a 5k isn’t doable in the near future (read: next year). Two of my wife’s cousins are runners, and one of them lives here and regularly runs a 5k. Should I challenge myself by actually signing up for one? I don’t know. I’ll have to think and pray about that.

I think tomorrow I’ll grab my new shoes and walk the half-mile block at my mother-in-law’s to get the lay of the land. I might even try running it, though I said I’d take 2 days to recover from yesterday. We will see.