Running Out of Time

I told you I wouldn't keep up with this.


Well, in the last post I mentioned the Turkey Trot 10k race I was planning to run. Well, I ran it! I ran the entire thing in 54 minutes and 38 seconds. Pretty good for me considering I had never ran that far in my life! It felt so good to cross the finish line and I nearly cried with exhaustion and happiness.

Shortly after the race I looked to my dad and said, "Well that's it I've been bitten."
My dad put his arm around me and laughed, "Bitten by what?"
I grinned up at him, "The Marathon bug. Now I have to run the Marathon."

And so it begins.

A month later on December 13th my friend Erin and I are waiting to start the Blue and Gray 5k. It was 7:00 in the morning and a balmy 26 degrees. Erin had heard of me running the 10k at Quantico, so she ran one herself in Alexandria on Thanksgiving Day and felt the same surge of excitement and wonder at running. So, naturally being best friends we had to do a race together.

A 5k is 3.1 miles and after doing the 6 felt like nothing. And when I say "felt like nothing" I could almost mean literally because I could feel nothing from my waist down until about 1 mile in. My legs were frozen!

I finished the race with a time of 25:56 (Erin got 23 something) and felt pretty good. My average 3 mile time at home was around 28 minutes, so I was glad to shave off almost 3 minutes from my time. After the race the topic of conversation wasn't the race but the long hill on the way back. You're on your last mile in the freezing cold and you hit this hill that's at least a quarter of a mile long. It was brutal :)
After the race we replenished our carbs with a breakfast at Ihop. It was 9am and I had already ran 3 miles. I was amazed.

January 1st I ran the Resolution 5k. That day wasn't as cold, but it was really windy, there was low humidity (dry cold air is horrible for running), and all of the runners were trying to squeeze onto little trails. So, I didn't get as good as a time as I would have liked. Shaved just three seconds off my last 5k time; 25:53. But I did get 3rd place in my age division for women! I won a gift certificate to VA Runner. I used it to get my new purple nikes :)

And then February 8th Ryan and I ran the Sweet Heart 4 Ever 4 Miler together :) It was really nice of him to run it with me. We finished in 36:16. They got this funny shot of us running. It's proof of his love for me!



So now I am following a personal training schedule I printed out from RunnersWorld.com. I generally run 20 miles per week and this week my long run on Sunday was 9 miles! So, my perception on distance has really changed. That 4 miler Ryan and I ran together was pretty easy and I probably could have ran it again right after the race.

Why all this running you ask? I am training (and so is Erin) for the 1/2 Marathon in VA Beach on March 22nd. This is why I am running out of time! I have a little over 4 weeks before the big one!