From Sitting to Standing

I had planned on running earlier today, but failed to do so because lately, I have not had enough sleep.  Sleep is definitely important, and today, because of that, I'm writing a short blog so that I could go to sleep.  I will wake up, however, early in the morning to go run, and plan on going long and easy.  As running in the morning is way more beneficial than running at night, I've decided to cut down on exercising at night, and waking up earlier in the morning to start my day off with exercise.

One thing that I changed about today is the fact that I no longer will sit at my desk and work.  I have changed up my office space so that my computer is on a counter and I would have to stand in order to use it for work.  In the morning, I spend most of my time working on things on the computer.  Because of that, I spend a lot of time sitting down in a chair.  I have been noticing that because of that, my body is starting to be accustomed to the sitting, and that's not exactly a good thing.  I have devised an area that would help me from sitting, and using more calories, and putting the weight on my legs, which needs as much exercise as possible.

I learned from http://www.livestrong.com/article/73916-calories-burned-standing-vs.-sitting/ that standing uses 50 more calories per hour, compared to sitting.  This is really cool, because I spend about 4 hours in the morning sitting at my desk.  If I were to change that, not only would my legs get more exercise, but I would also be using more energy.  It's a small difference, but over time, it can be a huge difference.  I am also going to make sure that part of my breakfast would contain eggs instead of boring old cereal, because it would give me more of the protein that I would need for my training.  ESPECIALLY if I run in the morning.

I did a little research on different kinds of races that were in the TN area, and I happened to go on the Knoxville Track Club website and see that there was a 12 hour race in June.  I'm curious to see if I could do that... and very curious to see if I could even possibly win that.  I believe that with enough training, I would be able to do well in that race.  I wouldn't know until I try... but I thought it was something else I could focus on after my marathon.  The marathon is only a step, and it doesn't matter too much about how well I do, but it matters to me that I use that to become better in both distance and speed.

Taking steps towards my goal can be big like the marathon I have in a couple weeks... or it could be small like standing at my job instead of sitting.  But as long as I take those steps, it gets me closer to where I want to be.  So we all have to ask ourselves, are we taking those steps?