Last May one of my friends convinced me to take up a gym membership.  Using the weight machines bored me so I mostly found myself using the treadmill.  Running in a room full of others became boring as well.  Running in one spot with nothing to look at but TVs and other people just didn’t do it for me.  So, I started running outside, usually at Presque Isle State Park.

There was a 5k race in August that I wanted to train for, the Mayor’s Cup 10K.  I would aim to do the 5K race though since I was barely running 2 miles straight without pausing in the middle.  I never realized how running is as much a mental game as it is physical. 

I ran the Mayor’s Cup race in August in 29:50 if I remember correctly.  Since then I’ve run in about six 5Ks with my latest time being 27:38.  I’ve also participated in a 5-mile and a 10K race since last August as well. 

Here’s what I’m building up to: Today I ran 13.1 continuous miles along with my coworker, Karen for the Presque Isle Half Marathon.  (who subsequently beat me by 5 minutes but who’s counting) My time was about 2:10 unofficially.  While I didn’t finish quite as fast as I wanted to but I think I did pretty well considering I had never run any distance like this before. Karen asked me about two months ago if I’d run with her so she’d have a training buddy and I agreed.  The funniest part of the whole thing was today at the starting line Karen turned to me and asked, “Why did we agree to do this again?”.  Ha!  I told her we’re doing it because we can.  That’s the honest truth too.  We both finished a half marathon and no one can take that away from us.  Here’s proof we were there.

I won’t be running for at least a week since I feel really beat up after today’s little jaunt but I’m really looking forward to my next race, The Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving. 

Oh and one other thing, if you ever see some people on the side of the road wearing brightly-colored clothing, give them a little space would ya?