I continue to do well with keeping my motivation up. I missed my long walk on Sunday, but it's OK because I ended up doing a long walk (55 minutes, 3.61 miles) on Saturday, which would have otherwise been my day off. I just switched Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday, I overslept and wasn't going to make my walk before work, but I came home at lunchtime and did my little walk. I took my GPSr with me this time and discovered that the walk is right at 2.0 miles. That's convenient. Yesterday, I found several Excel spreadsheets designed to log daily running activity. I played with a few of them and settled into one that I think I'm going to like. That's going to make it much easier to keep track of my goals and progress, as well as do a good job of easily keeping track of how many miles I have on my running shoes.

Yesterday evening, I stopped in the local running store to look at the sort of equipment that's available. I desperately need to get some appropriate shoes soon. I could also stand some walking/running shorts, maybe a sweatshirt and/or some sort of cap. I spent a bit of time looking at everything in the store, then talked with the shopkeeper a little. He recommended some socks and I bought two pair. I wore one of them on today's walk -- much, much more comfortable than the basic cotton socks I have been using. He also told me that they'll help me pick out some shoes when I'm ready. They have a treadmill in the store and what they do is put you on on the treadmill and watch you walk, so that they can get a good feel for what kind of shoe would be appropriate for you. I'm confident that when I get a pair from these guys, they will be a pair that will work really well for me. He also told me about a walkers club that recently started -- but they meet on Wednesday evenings, so that won't work because of my church obligations. After the time changes, they're going to be starting a beginner's running group. That will meet on Tuesday evenings. So I just might sign up for that -- everyone says that training with a group makes it a lot more fun and a lot easier.

I'm really trying to start slow so that I have fun with this and keep the risk of injury down as low as possible. And I'm really having lots of fun with it -- I know I'm only a week into doing it seriously, but it's still fun. If I am able to keep it up, I might find myself considering this year's MCM instead of holding off 'till next year. That's not what I'm trying to do, though -- my main goal is to be able to finish strong, so if I'll end up really having to push myself in order to run this year, it won't be fun, and I won't finish strong.