Hungry, Hungry Hippo

First of all, I am coming to you live from my in-laws' living room and let me tell you, its the best thing ever. I LOVE my husband's family and its such a blessing to be here. More on our trip later...

I don't know if you know this, but I've been running a lot lately. (Ha, ha, it's the only thing I've been talking about the last two weeks.)

Anyway, I want to talk about some changes Ive noticed in my hunger. I am always hungry!!! However, the hunger is different than normal. Before I started running long distances consistently, my hunger would just appear out of nowhere, like, one minute I was fine and the next minute I was incredibly hungry. It would just appear. I would eat (normally too much to try and quench the hunger) and then I wouldn't be hungry anymore.

Not so anymore. Now, I eat and about two hours later, I am hungry again. But it's not the same hungry. It's like a slow gnawing hunger in the back of my stomach that's just there. It reminds me that I need to eat soon, but I don't feel that panicky "I must eat" feeling. I eat a small snack, the hunger goes away and then a couple of hours later, it comes back. That means that I am eating all the time, just not as much. I am not consciously trying to do this, it just happens because while the gnawing hunger is not as bad as my old kind of hunger, I would rather it not be there at all. I kind of like this change because that panicky hungry feeling is my least favorite feeling and it doesn't make me the nicest person. When I have the gnawing hunger, I am still a normal, sane person.

I have also found the key to the reason my calves light on fire when I run outside. Actually, it's not only when I run outside. I should say that the only reason my calves don't burn is when I run on my treadmill at home. My treadmill is special because it has a special padding underneath the belt, which cushions as you run. Other treadmills, like the one I ran on yesterday and the sidewalk/paths do not have said padding. So, what I am experiencing in my calves and now my shins has to do with the lack of padding. Now that I have that figured out, I need to know how to make it stop because it hurts. It hurts so bad that I start to do a little dance I have titled the "Burning Calves" dance. It starts right after I quit running. I just can't start to stretch quick enough, so I end up hopping around and shaking my legs. Ouch. So...yesterday's run was scheduled to be four miles but I had to stop at three and a half. I must give a shout out to the bro in law for taking us to the gym so I could put myself through that torture. When we get home there will be a lot more outside runs for me. It's freaking freezing up here in Iowa and I want to avoid pneumonia so I am going to stick to the treadmill while we're here.

Happy Spring Break everyone!