The Boomerang Effect

I realized the other day that it had been over a year since I started writing this random tale of running.

I can't believe how far I have come as a runner since my very first post. I had just overcome some medical problems, given up smoking after 16 years and had never run more than 4 miles outside in my entire life. As a matter of fact, on my third post I dedicated an entire entry to my very first SIX MILE RUN!!! Haha, maybe one day I will look back at my post from a few weeks back when I did my first twenty mile run with the same sense of disbelief.

"Sheesh, I can't believe I thought a 20 mile run was such a big deal. Silly girl."

O.K. Maybe not.

Since starting my training for last years Miami Half Marathon (shortly after starting this blog) I have run appoximately 777.5 miles, if my calculations are correct. That is insane! I am really excited that I had a list of goals and actually stuck with every single one of them. (This concept if fairly new to me in life). Well, O.K. I didn't do the Ft. Lauderdale Half Marathon. I did Sarasota instead, minor details since I added Columbus to my list of goals. Most of all, I am happy about the person that running has helped me to become. It has made me more responsible, less stressed, and more aware of taking care of my body for health and performance rather than trying to be skinny.

I also believe that training for the half marathon last year played a HUGE role in my quitting smoking. While I had slowly been weaning myself off of cigarettes for the past two years, running regularly made it so much easier to just cut that cord. Running is a lot more fun when you can breathe (Captain Obvious here), but it also just gave me something else to focus on. Anyway, it was cool to go back and read how much things had changed in the past year. I love it when people go on and on about how they could never do what I do. I always think to myself, "If they only new me ten years ago when I was overweight, ate like shit, smoked a pack a day, partied waaaayyy too much and slept in till 2pm, they would realize that ANYONE can do it if you just suck it up and do it.

Damn, I should work in the Nike marketing department or something.

So, now that I'm done with my little motivational speech, I was such a slacker last week. Ha! This entry just took a total 180. After my last post I ran an 8 mile run with my friend Mercy around her place which was cool, then I had my second Footworks training run for Miami. I met with the group in the morning for a 6 mile run and it went really well. The group members started talking a little bit more and I didn't feel so awkward about being a "team leader" for some reason.

Unfortunately, the next day, J and I had a 16 miler scheduled for our training run for Columbus. We could have tried to combine the two and done 16 total on Saturday morning, but there is no way we could have run 10 miles by the time we were done with our Footworks training. In Miami 8am is waaaay too hot to go ten miles and getting up earlier to try and fit a 10 mile run in before we met up with Footworks would have meant we needed to start running at 4am. Um, yeah...no.

We still had to start at 4:45am though. You know you are getting up way too early to run when you are doing a 16 mile run and you get to the 8 mile turnaround point and it's still dark out. It's almost hilarious to me. I was surprised at how good I felt for the most part. I think running in the dark makes me feel like I'm not really running, but sort of in a weird dream. It was easy for me to zone out. Unfortunately for J, he wasn't feeling it. He was feeling sick the whole way and was having a hard time not wanting to turn around early. He kept telling me how the tables had turned and now it was me helping him get through these long runs, which was a funny thing to hear considering I would have never even been out there if it wasn't for him. Once we got about 2 miles from home, the heat kicked in and we were both done but knowing we only had a short bit left, helped to get us home and we actually finished pretty strong.

Of course we were completely useless for the rest of the day, but that's besides the point.

The rest of the week I totally slacked...er...I mean rested. I did one 7 miler with Mercy that killed me, then I had another Saturday run with Footworks. This week we had a shorter run scheduled for Columbus training, 12 miles and a 7 miler scheduled for the group Miami training so we decided to combine them to give us Sunday off (yay!) Of course that meant running 5 with Jeremy at 4:45am, ending our run where we meet our Footworks groups then separating to run another 7 with them. Actually, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be and the best thing is we didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn to run today! Last weekend our "sleeping in day" was Saturday and we "slept in" till 5am. It's sad when you are looking forward to going back to work on Monday so you can sleep in.

What has happened to my life?

Thursday, 8/16 - 7.9 miles/1:17:54 - 10:06 pace
Saturday, 8/18 - 6 miles/1:07 - 11:03 pace
Sunday, 8/19 - 16 miles/2:48 - 10:29 pace (right on pace!)
Wednesday, 8/22 - 7 miles/1:11:47
Saturday, 8/25 - 12.5 miles/2:12:44 - 10:38 pace
Sunday, 8/26 - Gym (abs and lift)

Total Weekly (week and a half) Mileage: 49.40