Did I mention that I have recently gone crazy?
If not, let me bring you up-to-date. While out to dinner with a woman from church a few months ago, she told me that she wanted to run a half-marathon this autumn. I said I didn't know she was a runner. She responded "I'm not".
She had decided this was one of those things she needs to do once in her life. She's not getting any younger, so she decided this was the year. I admired her drive and told her how brave she is.
Then I began thinking, I am not a runner either. If she can do it from scratch, so can I. I began thinking seriously about joining her. The only thing is: I hate running! The longest I have ever run is maybe a mile and I was seriously struggling. I had convinced myself that I am simply one of those women who was not built to be a long-distance runner.
Well, to make a long story short, I sign up for the race. I am crazy, I know. To make it even more official, I told everyone I know about it. Nothing like fear of failure in front of everyone you know to push you to work harder!
So I printed out a half marathon training schedule for beginners and started running. The first week I just needed to walk/run for 15 minutes. Slowly I have worked my way to more and more. I have found that having a goal at the end of all this work has pushed me to stick with my training. I have suffered from some leg pain, but a week of doing non-impact cardio fixed that.
I will keep you updated on my progress. I am about 7 weeks away from the race right now. The longest I have run so far is about 2.5 miles. I know I should be further along right now, but my leg injuries have held me back a bit. I am trying to celebrate the small victories. I have never in my life ran 2.5 miles! I figure if I ran 2.5miles of the race and walked the other 11.6, it is still a success.
What is something you have always wanted to do but have never done?
Prepare to get hooked! Running has strange addictive powers....at least with everyone I know. I started running 7 years ago when I was so out of shape it nealy killed me. And I have kept with it now very faithfully and through two (and working on my third) pregnancy. It just feels so nice to be in shape and not ever "get winded". Good for you! I hope you find that you love it!
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