Running Again

I am not a fast runner.  I'm not even a slow runner.  I'm a ridiculously slow you-should-just-walk runner.  That stopped me from running for a long time.  It also held me back from running long distances.

When I got pregnant with Ethan I decided I was going to keep running the little bit I did, which was a mile, two tops, sporadically throughout the week.  Sometimes I went two weeks without running (thank you morning sickness).  I had to stop when I hit my third trimester.  Everything was too uncomfortable and I was too freakin' huge.

Here I am now.  I've been running a lot, and longer distances, despite not being very fast at all.  Three Saturdays ago I found a free 5k and signed Josh and I up.  Poor Josh had to wait for me to catch up, but I ran the whole thing.  My time was 37:47.  I could have cried.  I really wanted to cry.  My worst time in cross country was 35 minutes, and that involved not feeling great at all and working really late the night before.  But I didn't cry.  I took the fact that I ran the entire race, even at an you-should-just-walk pace, to mean that I was ready to push myself more.

Last week I decided that I'm going to try and run a marathon on Jan 1st.  It's at the Olympic Oval.  You run for 5 hours around the track, so for some it will be a marathon, for others it won't.  I would like to try and run a marathon but I know I might not make it with my you-should-just-walk pace.  So I set out to find a training schedule.

Find one I did.  One night last week I was supposed to run 4 miles.  I found a route I wanted to take and set off.  It had me go through a neighborhood I've never been through before.  Well I got lost.  I knew I was too deep into the neighborhood and I hadn't seen the park I was supposed to run by.  After heading back towards the main road I finally found it.  I was ready to quit running, but at that point my legs felt comfortable enough that walking would have felt worse than running (plus at my speed it was basically the same thing, one just bounced my ponytail a little more).  I felt great when I got home.  After mapping everything out and trying to remember streets I had gone 5 miles, the longest that I've ever ran straight.

Last Saturday I ran a 5k my ward put together.  I was the third woman to finish!  Okay, okay, I was one of three that actually ran.  There were a couple that walked it.  At least that means my you-should-just-walk pace is actually slightly faster than walking now!  I didn't notice my time, and I really didn't care.  It was fun to just get out and run.

So this week, and many weeks to follow will be full of running.  If the marathon works out I would like to do the Salt Lake and Ogden marathon for sure.  There are a lot of races I would love to do, but running gets expensive, so we'll see.  For now it feels good to be running again.