The search is over! Well, maybe.

Confession: I caved and bought $40 headphones yesterday.

I don't usually waste so much money on something that can be purchased for $10, or comes free with an iPod, but like many other avid runners, I have been on the hunt - for the perfect pair of headphones.

Ones that won't hurt your ears an hour or more into your workout. Ones that won't fall out when you sweat. Ones that sound good, yet feel like they're virtually not there.

I am probably known at my local Target as "the girl who purchases headphones, opens them, uses them once and then returns them in a week, dissatisfied." It's amazing that they continue to let me do this - so much so that I actually went to a different Target for my latest foray in headphone land, lest I be forced to return these as well.

Buuuut I don't think I will this time.

If you're like me and you do random Google searches for "best workout headphones," you are dying right now to hear which brand and model I say. So I'll just tell you: They're Sony Sport Headphones, model MDR-AS40EX. They come with two lengths of cord (one just two feet, to connect to an iPod in an armband, the other long), three earbud sizes and three over the ear sizes. What's more is that the over-the-ear pieces are optional.

These things are ingenious. I must've been really excited because I hadn't even planned to work out this morning, but I woke up at 6 a.m. and couldn't sleep, so like any masochist, I thought, "Let's try out those new headphones!" Today was supposed to be a "rest" day for my legs, so I used the elliptical for 40 minutes. This is important to note because the elliptical decreases impact, meaning that there's less bouncing around and headphones are less likely to bounce off.

Ten minutes in...headphones haven't moved. Twenty minutes in...I'm sweating and the headphones haven't moved. Thirty minutes in...I accidentally jerk on the cord with my hand and almost pull my iPod to the ground. But my headphones? THEY DON'T MOVE.

Obviously, I'm thrilled. But the true test will come tomorrow when I do a longer outdoor run, because what I really want to know is, "Will these bad boys stay on throughout an entire half or full marathon?"

The only drawback is that the sound quality isn't as good as the usual in-ear headphones I use, but it's something I'm willing to deal with if it means I'm not fiddling with my ears every two minutes.

Why I Run...or, Why I Blog

About a week and a half ago, I was visiting some friends and the topic of my asthma came up, which led to the topic of the half marathon I'm currently training for.
I'll be honest right off the bat: I love to talk about my asthma and my health and my running, which hasn't always been the case. Asthma was my big secret growing up. I would literally sit through an entire class in school with an asthma attack, just so I wouldn't have to use my inhaler in front of people and field the inevitable question: "Are you OK?"
Of course I'm not OK, I have a disease that makes my lungs randomly close up and stop working when I smell some perfume or breathe cold air or run a mile. But the only thing that makes having asthma worse is everyone noticing it.
At least that was my mentality as a kid. Well, I'm still kind of a kid.
Regardless, the aforementioned conversation left my friends (older women, avid runners, but for short distances only) incredulous that a severe asthmatic (and, let's be honest, I don't exactly look like a model of health, either) has run a half marathon and plans to do another.

"But wasn't the training hard? I've wanted to run a half marathon but the training schedules are insane!" Sherry said.
"I...don't follow a training schedule," I told her. "I run when I have time and when I feel up to it."

In a roundabout way, what I'm trying to say is that I started this blog because I realized that so many people think of marathons and other athletic events and automatically assume they can't do it because they're not fit enough or don't have the time to train. It's just not true, and I'm here to prove it, as well as to talk about my personal struggles as a slightly overweight asthmatic with ridiculously short legs trying to accomplish my ultimate goal of running a full marathon - hopefully without my toenails falling off (more on that later).

No one will ever put me on a pedestal as a model of fitness to be envied. My asthma will never go away and thus, will always limit me. But that's exactly why it's more interesting to hear about me running and trying to eat right and drink less and not be a couch-bound slob than someone who has an easy time doing it: because most of us don't have an easy time getting or staying in shape. But I hope that like Sherry, my story can show other people that yes, it is possible to run.