I Jinxed It!

So around the new year, I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Because I Said So (http://mom2my6pack.blogspot.com/) where Dawn was talking about new years resolutions and how she wanted to lose weight this year. Well, duh. Do you know a woman who doesn't want to lose weight? So I kept thinking about it. And yep, I decided I wanted to lose weight, too. And yes, me being me, I couldn't just leave it at that. I have to do something about it. I set myself an actual goal. I want to run 5Ks. Not just a 5K or a specific one, but apparently I decided that running is something I want to do on a regular basis. I don't always understand my thought processes either.

So I found something called Couch Potato to 5K. It sounded easy. It just takes nine weeks of gradually increasing the amount of time and distance you run, and suddenly, you're running 5K. That sounds like something I can do.

I have just a couple very small problems:
#1 I don't belong to a gym. I won't belong to a gym until my kids are in first grade, probably. During the day, I'm either working or doing something with the kids or volunteering. At night, I know me. I'm not going to go to a gym often enough to make it cost effective. That means I need to run outside, which is fine until it leads to problem...
#2 I live in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. It gets cold here in the winter, and I decided I wanted to learn to run in the middle of January. This year, not only has it been cold, but we've had enough snow to freeze over a certain netherworld. With a neighborhood where people don't always shovel their sidewalks (a topic for another post, I assure you) or build giant snowmen or igloos in the middle of the sidewalk, running outside is not just silly but dangerous.

In my head, I'm ok with that. I'm still going to learn to run 5Ks. In fact, I had DH download a nine part podcast that talks you through each week's workouts. Yep, I'm ready. I even bought a cool neoprene thing that goes around my arm to hold my iPod. I'm so ready. As soon as it gets warm enough to start running outside.

Now I won't lie to you. We've had some decent days in the past month or so. I think one day we even got up to 50 degrees. But really, what's the point of running (ok, walking with a few bursts of jogging) when the next day we go back to the deep freeze? I keep telling myself that we're almost to spring, so I'm almost going to start running. Really. Almost. I swear!

Then I saw the forecast this past Tuesday. On Saturday, it was going to be 49 degrees and sunny. On Sunday, 51. Monday was in the mid-40s. I was going to be able to start running this weekend! I was so excited! This morning, it was 12 degrees when I woke up. And windy. And it had snowed a little last night.

Now seriously, the snow was just a dusting, but it was the perfect amount of dusting to show me that someone, somewhere is making a joke at my expense. How can a day that's supposed to be 49 degrees instead be 12 with a dusting of snow? As I'm fuming internally about this, I look more closely outside. There wasn't just a dusting of snow. It was still snowing! And it wasn't a snowstorm kind of snow. For those of you who live where it snows, you know what I'm talking about. It's the tiny, crystalline, almost invisible bits of snow that are almost invisible unless you're looking at them in just the right light.

I went to yoga this morning, and it was still doing the laughing snow in my face thing. I ran errands, and still the remnants of winter reminded me who's in charge. What can you do? I'm obviously not running this weekend.

I got home and DH asked if I'd seen the forecast for next week. Innocently, I asked what it was. Mid-40s starting on Wednesday. Maybe next weekend is my weekend to start running?