I am a Runner

I have always enjoyed running. It is a form of exercise where you don't have to think much about your exercise, the only hard part is getting out of bed and going. Last February I started a weight loss group with 20 women in my community. Each child I had kept on about 10 pounds and I decided it was time to lose the baby weight. I had a treadmill I had purchased for $20 at a yard sale a few years before. I started walking on it. And then I started to run. In fact, I remember watching the Olympics on TV and pushing myself to try and run for 5 minutes and then I could walk. The end of May I ran my first 10k and in 65 minutes. In 10th grade we took a careers class and wrote some goals. One of those goals I wrote was to run a marathon. I have wanted to do one since, but have been busy having children or nursing a baby, or working, or moving, or too depressed to get myself out of the house, etc. So after running the 10k and feeling awesome about it, I decided 2010 would be my year. In August I registered for the Mesquite Marathon on November 20. As part of my training I decided to run the Spanish Fork Half Marathon. I know now that it is not the best idea to train for a marathon before ever finishing a half. In fact, I was only up to about 9 miles in my training. I was training too hard, too often, not nourishing my body correctly and with cheap shoes which led to a knee injury 2 weeks before the marathon in November. I tried resting, but I couldn't even get to one mile before I teared up in pain. I was devastated. All of the hours, the Saturday morning long runs, the dream of finishing a marathon were destroyed. I know that sounds dramatic. But anyone who has been there will understand exactly what I mean and the emotions that come with it.

However, I did complete the Spanish Fork Half Marathon in September. And I finished 21 minutes faster than my goal time. Honestly I finished too quickly. I didn't have a watch and I really didn't have a clue with how long I had been running. But there were so many people and people were passing me and I didn't know how many were behind me and the whole race felt like I was behind and trying to catch up. Most of the time, all I could think was, "How in the world am I ever going to be able to go twice this distance!" But there is a great sense of pride finishing a race. And the pain is mostly forgotten. My chip time was 2 hours 8 minutes and 43 seconds. So I averaged just under 10 minute miles. I placed 135th out of 197 overall and 52nd out of 98 women. So not too shabby.

Greg, the kids and Greg's parents were waiting for me at the finish line. I started crying shortly after this picture. I was so happy to see my kids cheering for me, so exhausted, and so happy to be at the finish line!

Cuddling my kids after the race.

Almost asleep while they were handing out awards. I actually won a Real Salt Lake jersey.

Running turned out to be therapeutic for me. It is time to myself. I have an opportunity to think uninterrupted thoughts. Most mornings I watched the sun rise and have grown an enormous amount of gratitude for the beauty of the earth. I lost a total of 25 pounds in 2010. However, I have gained back almost 10 pounds since I started healing my knee, eating too much over the holidays, and struggling with the motivation to get started again. It's cold and dark outside! I was fitted for new running shoes and purchased some and have started reading more about nutrition and how to safely train and hope to run at least another half marathon this year. I don't want to consider a marathon until I get to that point and feel well. Once I finish getting this blog up to date, I can post regularly about my progress.