For whatever reason, I've always been able to let myself get badly out of shape, but get myself back to normal rather quickly. This typically coincides with the transition from fall to winter, and then from winter to spring. I started running again about a week and a half ago, and while I'm nowhere near as fast as I could be, the excess weight I had put on over the winter is already gone. Not that I worry much about these things, but it's still a nice feeling.

In the past, I've attempted to track this without much luck. I had decent enough apps installed on my previous two phones (Windows Mobile and Palm), however the unreliable GPS radios in those devices made it very difficult to get accurate data. My current phone, the LG Optimus, has been behaving quite a bit better. I installed the free MyTracks app, and have been using it to record my paths and upload to Google Docs and Maps. If you're curious, the spreadsheet lives here.

I have a few set routes, which can be good and bad - good, in that familiarity tends to make time go by more quickly, and also that I'm able to more accurately compare each run with the same hills, similar conditions, etc; bad, in that seeing the same things tends to get boring. (That sounds...off. Ah well, it makes sense to me.) Anyhow, it's been pretty inspiring to have stats like this. Seeing my times get better makes me want to improve them even further, and if they drop, I know that I need to work harder. I feel that tracking my progress will help to make sure I actually get out and run - I'll feel bad if I'm missing days in my spreadsheet*!

*You'll notice that I did skip a few days this week. Running 11 miles this past Sunday probably wasn't the best idea just yet. I took Monday off because I was sore and tired, and it stormed on Wednesday. Yay excuses!

I also signed up for the 5K Racing Sausage run around Miller Park. I did this two years ago and finished at around 29 minutes - it should be noted, however, that I was about 8 minutes late for the start of the race! Ran in the 5K in Waunakee last summer, finishing in a very "meh" 24 minutes. I hope to do several more this summer, maybe a few 10K or longer mixed in as well. I have no reason to believe that a sub-20 minute 5k shouldn't be doable. There, I said it!