Music to run by

I've started running again. The NYC weather is too gorgeous, and the Hudson River running path too convenient not to. CM read somewhere that once you've built up to running about 3 miles regularly, you'll always have a base to rely on, even if you stop running for a long time. I think that must be true, because it's been months since I was running regularly and yet my body seems to remember how to do it. In the past, trying to start running after any time away has felt pretty much like death; maybe I just didn't have enough of a base.

I use the Nike+ Running app on my iPhone to track my runs. I have a running playlist filled with the usual suspects: Beyonce, Britney, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Kelly Clarkson, etc. Your basic heart-pumping dance mix. It works for me. However, since last spring the Nike people have changed around the app a bunch, and it took me a few days to figure out exactly how to use it. Which is how I ended up with my music library on Shuffle by mistake during a run last week. Meaning I ran to a soundtrack of my opera season's greatest hits.

When "Che soave fanciulla" came on, I was tempted to stop running and figure out how to get back to "All the single ladies," but then I realized that listening to Bohème was actually distracting me from the fact that I was running (which, let's be honest, is the point of listening to anything at all while working out).

One of my colleagues had a professor in grad school who said that when you're working on a play, you should read it all the time, in as many different settings as possible. Read it right before you go to sleep, read it first thing in the morning, read it at the gym, read it over lunch. That way you absorb the play, and you start seeing it differently depending on the context. Surely that's a good way to go about immersing yourself in an opera, too, and it's actually easier to do with music, since when it's on you can listen as actively or as passively as you want to.

I'm learning a lot of repertoire this year, most of it for work but some of it just because I want to know more operas. It's a busy year (have to keep reminding myself that's a GOOD thing), and my usual procrastinating ways are not going to fly. So it seems a little multi-tasking on the running trail might be just what I need. I'm not ready to give up my running playlist entirely, but once a week I think I'll try forgoing it in favor of a little opera instead.

What do you listen to while running? And how do you fit in time for studying?

Bossy Essentials: Health Gadgets

Aside from the last couple cookie-filled weeks, I've been taking seriously my resolution to make my health a priority. Running, yoga, eating better, walking more—I can already feel significant changes in my energy and mood (my new pants in a smaller size don't hurt my mood much, either). Of course, since I'm a gadget girl, I'm enjoying exploring a host of new technology to help along the way. I'm sharing my current faves here, and I'd love to hear yours!

First and foremost, I'm having trouble remembering how I lived with out my Fitbit Ultra. It's a tiny pedometer that tracks your steps taken, stairs climbed, and calories burned, as well as tracking your sleep! It's small enough to wear everywhere (I clip it to the middle of my bra during the day and to my waistband when I'm working out), and it syncs to the website so you can look at your habits in graphs and charts. If you're looking to lose weight, you can also log your food online and it will give you a calorie range to aim for based on how active you are that day. I cannot recommend this highly enough. CM has one, too, and we both love the accountability.

I started using the Sleep Cycle app on the recommendation of Legs McGee. It's an alarm clock on your iPhone that you put in the bed with you. You set the time that you have to wake up, and based on your movement it finds the best time to wake you up during the half-hour window leading up to your wake-up time. For all I know it might be hooey, but it does seem like it's easier to wake up feeling rested and alert when I use it. And it's only 99 cents.

I'm trying to be better at drinking more water, and the Camelback Groove water bottle has been so helpful. It has a few features that make it perfect in my book. One is a built-in filter, which makes even my NYC tap water taste delicious. Another is the straw that goes all the way to the bottom of the bottle, so you don't have to tip it back to drink from it. And finally, it's completely spill-proof (you have to bite the straw slightly to drink). I cannot tell you how many times I spilled water in my purse by not screwing on the cap of my Sigg bottle tightly enough. This is much better.

CM and I both use the Nike+ GPS app on our phones every time we go for a run. It tracks mileage, pace, and route using the GPS in your phone. It syncs with the website so you can track your progress. I love nothing more than going online and seeing all my runs next to each other in a chart(I've run 61 miles so far this year!). For whatever reason, it's really important to me to be able to track my progress in some quantifiable way. This way is the best I've found.

I swear by these Sony headphones for workouts. They go around your ear completely while still having the earbud, so they never fall off, and they don't hurt my ears like the iPod headphones always do. They're perfect for listening to my running mix.

What's keeping you healthy these days?

#12. Check.

I do not like crowds, so I do my best to avoid them. When forced to be in a large group of people, I am overly fond of mumbling "I hate people" under my breath and not making eye contact. I would rather eat glass than be in Times Square on New Year's Eve. Or any other day, for that matter.

Also, I don't like being uncomfortable. I get cold easily, and I don't like being cold. Or being hot. Or getting wet.

And yet.

Saturday morning at 8:00 when the starter pistol fired at my very first 5K race, as I surged forward in the humid mist, surrounded by several thousand other runners in close proximity, I felt exhilarated more than anything.  CM was at my side (Legs McGee sprinted on ahead—she is speedy), and even though I was nervous I knew I was ready. So we ran the race, and finished it. I had only one near-meltdown close to the finish line (note to self: look at the course before the race so you know what to expect). My time was a respectable 30:11. And even though the weather was turning me into a sweaty mess (see below), and the fast people were pushing by me, and the slow(er) people were getting in my way, I enjoyed myself. Enough to want to do it again, even. So this morning CM and I started training to run 10K, something I could not have imagined only a couple months ago.

I will say, though, that even without that race-inspired adrenaline rush, for my money there is no better way to run than just the two of us, on our neighborhood path, on a crisp 60° morning.

I think I'll keep doing that.

12. Run a race. Finish it.

Channel your inner dog

For the past few weeks CM and I have been running 4 days a week. We're in the final week of a Couch to 5K type training plan (shhh…don't tell CM it's from Women's Health), so by Sunday we should be able to run 30 minutes at a time. It's been ages since I stuck to an exercise routine of any kind for this long, and I've surprised myself by how much I'm enjoying it.

In the past when I've spent any time running I've either done it on a treadmill while watching TV or outside while listening to some kind of upbeat iPod mix. My goal has always been to distract myself and to drown out the constant voice in my head telling me how easy it would be just to stop running. Not this time. CM and I run together, outside (there's an incredible path right around the corner from our house), without music. Aside from the occasional chitchat, we hear nothing but the soothing Nike+ updates every 5 minutes.

It's unexpectedly peaceful, actually. Turns out, running is easier for me without all those distractions. I feel much more in tune with my body and my breathing, and I find that my mind does some automatic problem-solving while I'm running.

Which is not to say that I'm finding it EASY, exactly. As of today, we're up to running 22 minutes without a break, and it's still definitely a challenge for me. Luckily, CM seems to always know exactly when I need a quick "Keep it up!" or "You're doing great!"—it's good to have my own personal cheerleader running next to me.

We're starting to get familiar with the neighborhood dog owners, who besides a few fellow joggers are generally the only other people out on the path at 7:30am. Some are simply walking their dogs, but we've seen several dogs running ahead of their jogging (and in one case rollerblading!) owners. Nobody in the world is as happy as a city-dwelling dog out for a run.

This morning during our warm-up walk, we saw one of these ecstatic running dogs, tongue out, ears flapping. "What we need to do," said CM, "is to channel our inner dog whenever we're feeling grumpy about being out here running."

So my new dog-inspired running mantra goes a little something like this:

I am so LUCKY to be RUNNING outside! I get to RUN today! RUNNING is my favorite thing! I love RUNNING! Look at me RUNNING!

This morning, whenever I felt my energy flagging, I thought of those dogs (or better yet, saw another one) and instantly felt better. Ask me again when I'm attempting longer distances, but for now, it's working. After our 22 minutes were up and we were cooling down with the walk home, CM turned to me and said, "Thank you for taking me on a run today."

I feel like we may have hit upon the meaning of life here. Channel your inner dog, people.

Photo via Pixdaus