Ready to Run

I just finished a book on running called “Marathoning for Mortals”.  I learned so much, and now I can’t wait to start my journey towards running a 1/2 marathon!

I learned that I need to consistently run 3 times a week for at least 10 months before I start officially training, but I’m just excited to even think about finally working towards this goal.

I haven’t always had this ambition.  In fact, I’m pretty sure my high school cross-country coach would laugh at me if I told him I want to run a 1/2 marathon.  You see, I wasn’t the greatest/most dedicated runner.

• I spent every practice chatting while I “ran” with my friend, Rachel.
• One of my favorite memories from cross-country is the time Rachel and I saw a huge black dog behind us on our trail.  We screamed like the girls we were, and took off running faster than we’d ever ran before.  I guess that’s one form of motivation.
• The next day, Tyler, who was a year older than we were, came running up behind us (yes, he’d “lapped” us).  We thought he was the same black dog, and we took off running and screaming again.  And then, when we’d realized it was him, we laughed so hard we could hardly breathe.  He just looked at us like we were crazy.
• My favorite days were “run 6 miles or 45 minutes–whatever comes first” days.  It was a no-brainer for Rach and me: why run 6 miles in less than 45 minutes when we could leisurely jog?
• I begged my coach to let me run JV in every race that had a JV run.  He only let me once.
• Sometimes we would decide that we didn’t feel like running, so we’d walk the course until we saw one of our coaches.
• And my personal favorite:  I once fell in a hole/twisted my ankle on purpose so I didn’t have to finish a race.

That’s me.  Cross-country champion.

But in all honesty, I really wouldn’t have been bad if I’d only set my mind towards doing well.  In the only race where I actually ran my best, I qualified for State (not that I did well once I got there, but at least I know I could have been doing much better throughout the season).

My sophomore year of college, I decided that I wanted to train for a 1/2.  I had a running partner named Matt, but we had to run at the track since he was forever faster than I was.  16 times around the track=BORING.  Then I started running with my friend Lauren, and we were doing really well!  We made it all the way up to 7.5 miles, and then I quit.  Michael and I started dating, and suddenly spending time with him was way more important than running.

Since we’ve been married, we’ve ran off and on quite a bit, and we both really enjoy it.  So now we’re going to really work at running 3 times a week.  We’re planning on running a 5k in April and then a 10k sometime after that.  And then we can train for a 1/2 marathon before too long.  Woo-Hoo!

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Q for you:  Have you ran a marathon or a 1/2 marathon?  Do you want to?  If you have absolutely no desire to do so, what’s one thing you DO want to do that you’ve been putting off for way too long?

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–Staci

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