Mission: Accomplished

Remember when I decided that I'd like to run 65 miles for the month of October? And then I decided that this week (my weeks run from Monday to Sunday like they do in Europe and most of the rest of the world) I would run 15 miles as a test week to make sure it was possible. I just got back from running 3.3 miles in possibly my slowest time ever of almost 12:00 miles. That brings my weekly total up to 15.1 miles. I decided it was fine to be slow today for several reasons:
1. I had a burrito for lunch.
2. I was up late last night.
3. I ate crap and had a beer yesterday so I'm not even playing with the right kind of fuel (although you'd think the beans would have provided some propulsion)
4. I worked my tail off the past two days. Yesterday in particular was a lot of physical labor. Painting a room doesn't sound that hard and it's really not. But I spent a lot of time bending and stretching my back and my legs in odd ways because of the position I needed to be in to paint. (Yeah, I wish I was doing other stuff with the bending and the stretching. Sadly your mom was busy.)
5. I have never run into a head-wind quite like the one I was running into today. That was exciting.

I've determined that this goal is both challenging and can be accomplished. I've picked up some other things as well:
1. 15 miles is a good distance. It requires me to run four days per week.
2. 15 miles is also a good distance because if my life gets really crazy, I can go 15 miles in three days. I just have to plan for it.
3. I think at least one of those runs should be on the track at the Y. I run faster on the track and I keep a steadier pace.
4. At least one of the runs should be over 4 miles. It's a nice distance. Also, it makes the last run of the week much shorter.

While I was running, I also thought it would be fun to spend the month of October only eating at locally owned restaurants (read: No Olive Garden). I haven't decided if I'm going to do it or not because I first need to determine if Caribou Coffee counts as locally owned. They are a Minnesota company. I also like that they give a lot of money to Breast Cancer research so it seems like October is the wrong month to not go to Caribou. I also thought the "eat locally" thing would make me spend considerably less at restaurants because it so severely limits the number of places I can go. And then I realized that I have some friends who live in the suburbs and I don't know if they could play this game. I certainly can because I have Mercado Central, Global Market, so delis on West 7th, and the place I had a burrito at last week, and that's just what I can think of right now. When I go see Michelle (read: Burnsville) all the restaurants out there are chains. I'd still like to see those people. I'll have to take this under advisement.