Water bottle problem solved... with one teensy drawback

The green bottle on left is the one I took with me the last several runs. It has an approximately 22 oz capacity, a flip top lid, and a freezable insert thingy (not shown) for keeping your water cold. It also has a clip which I have attached to a silicone cause bracelet (Go Army, in this case) so that I can drop and recover the bottle easily whenever I need my hand free. 

It's lovely as a general water bottle, but for running? Frankly, it sucks.

• The size is too large for my hand so I get hand cramps 
• it's overly heavy when filled but overly sloshy when not
• I don't like cold water so the chill pack thingy is a waste(admittedly nice for days at the beach and the like though)
• the hole is too small so I feel like I never get enough water out for the amount of time I'm holding my breath to drink
• I have to tilt my head back to drink so I lose sight of the road and always get water on/up my nose  
• the lid is going to take one of my teeth out. 

And this is the least awkward of my water bottles!

Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational water bottle

And so I perused the sporting goods during a trip to Target (ostensibly to check out the Halloween stuff) and found the most perfect bottle EVAR... except for one little detail. 

• It's a reasonable 12 oz capacity so it wont be too heavy
• a nice narrow bottleneck so I should be able to hold it comfortably
• an old school Lunch Box Thermos style pop up straw so I can drink from it naturally with my head forward
• a sturdy loop I can attach a lariat to for quick hands free recovery
•  a chic, classy, 360° silk screened Disney/Pixar Cars logo (I hated that movie). *sigh*

That's what I get for having wee tiny child hands I suppose.

The good news is that the Go Army cause bracelet fits around it perfectly... so looks like it's time to start collecting cause bracelets for a ghetto hack silicone bottle cozy!

******
September Blog Challenge Day 16: How do you measure your fitness progress?

First and most direct; I measure my distance and time via both the C25K and Nike+ apps on my phone and try to keep in mind the relative effort I am putting into each workout. Compared to when I started I am doing pretty much twice the distance at one and a half times the speed with less effort.

Second: I see the way my clothes fit. In five months I have gone from nearly needing a new wardrobe to digging stuff out of the back of my closet that I probably should have gotten rid of years ago.

Third: I do things that would have been exhausting six months ago and they are simply a good effort. Spending days moving house, walking around a museum for a day, dancing to every song until last call.

Fourth (and probably most abstract) I look at my forearms and wrists: when I am fit I have delicate (but not scrawny) forearms with fine boned wrists and a pleasant level of musculature. Despite my small size I feel that my arms look willowy and refined. When I am starting to add too many pounds my forearms become soft and featureless, my wrists become a dimple on the way to my hand.

I get it when my body adds weight to my midsection, that's where people naturally gain weight; but when fat starts distributing to spots like my wrists and the backs of my knees I know that I have simply exceeded capacity. As the finer structures in my body re-emerge I feel like I'm literally emerging from some sort of shell or cocoon.

******
My run today: C25K week 8 day 3
3.26 miles at 11:38 per mile (full workout per Nike+ 3.67 miles at 13:00 per mile - I planned a longer route and walked the remaining 0.41 miles)

New route beat the pants off of the old one, beautiful houses, wide roads, fewer crazy intersections, there was even a horse pasture! No horses out, but there was also a LARGE dropping on the road nearby, so either the horse farm is active or someone in the neighborhood has a pet bear.

My pacing is getting WAY better and I dropped into my stride very early. I still feel like a bellows from breathing so deeply but that is starting to feel a little more natural too. I almost started running again to finish out my route when the C25K workout ended but I figure there is plenty of time for that sort of thing later.