Running: lessons I've learned

1. Running in a regular, heavy-weight t-shirt on a hot day is not advisable.  You will be a horrible sweaty mess, and it will be totally gross when you have to put your backpack on and walk home for 15 minutes. Yuck. Stick to the tissue-thin shirts instead!

2. All this running really helps with making healthy food choices.  When you get home and you're sweaty and tired, all you want to do is refuel with things that are refreshing, to drink a bunch of water and eat some almonds or lean protein (fish, chicken) with lots of spices and some green vegetables.  Long gone are the days of craving potato chips and massive amounts of cheese for dinner.  As Cookie Monster would say, those are "sometimes foods."

3. Keep your ipod charged.  Seriously, I mean it.  When that thing goes kaput in the last 5 minutes of your run, those last 5 minutes will feel like about 20, and you won't be able to trick yourself into keeping your eyes off the mileage indicator or the treadmill clock by saying, "Don't check again until the end of this song." Torture!

4. "Tired" means something very different than it did 6 months ago, and it definitely doesn't mean the same thing as "I need to stop."  Finishing a tough run makes you tired, but also invigorated, and even though you're tired, there's still the extra step of walking home from the gym or climbing the stairs to your apartment or getting on with the rest of the day's business, and you know you have the energy reserves to do it.

5. You can use a whole new set of words to describe yourself.  While you're running, try them on for size:

Powerful.

Dedicated.

Unstoppable.

A force to be reckoned with.

Any runners out there with your own lessons to share?  Are there any words you never thought you would use to describe yourself, and now they seem to fit?  Are there any adjectives you're working for or want to start working for?