My running adventure started in January of 2011. I told Stephen in the car on the way home from Alabama after Christmas that my goal that year was to run a 5K (pretty sure that was the world's longest run on sentence!). So with a little blip in training due to surgery in early March, I ran my first 5K on April 9, 2011 at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. My time was 26:49 (8:36) and I came in 59th place for my gender and 674th overall. Two months later I ran my second 5K in Nacogdoches in the Running of the Blueberries on June 11, 2011. My time was 26:29 (8:33m) and I came in 5th place for my gender and 38th place for my age group.
I set my sights next on a 10K and having not run like this before, I did not realize what I was getting into with the Texas heat! My running routine quickly change from 4:00 pm runs to 10:00 pm runs. (I guess I could have run in the mornings, but that would have required me to actually get up early and we all know I'm very much morning challenged!). So I picked out the Get Your Rear in Gear race in Ft. Worth (I thought from the title it was an run encouraging people to get off the couch. Nope, it was a colon cancer awareness run!). It was the perfect race because it landed on the same weekend as Stephen's Texas Pharmacy Association meeting in Ft. Worth that year. It was literally right down the street from where we were staying! So June 25, 2011, with the help of my awesome SIL, I completed my first and only 10K to date. I cannot find my official race results from that day, but I know I either ran it in 52 or 53 minutes. My goal had been to finish it in and hour and ten so I was super pumped about my time. We thought I had maybe finished in the top five or so in my age group and stayed to hear the results, but I didn't. Come to find out later when I went to check the official times I was not on the list. When I checked the 5K results I was on that list. So it looked like it took my an hour to finish a 5K :( I was pretty bummed about that!
After the 10K I decided I wanted to try and train for a Half Marathon. Unfortunately my knee had other plans and around October (the half was in December) I was running around an hour and a half and the knee pain became unbearable:( So I had to stop. I cut back and was just running anywhere from 3-5 miles. Then in February my morning sickness was out of control terrible and I was lucky to run a mile or two twice a week if that :( After my miscarriage I decided I wanted to give the half another shot, but unfortunately my knee got worse this time and only about two weeks into the training. I went to the doctor and he thinks I have a torn meniscus. I got a cortozone (sp?) shot and while I didn't really think it was going to help, to my surprise the shot along with cutting back on the running to only twice a week has done wonders!
Last Saturday I decided to run in the Running of the Blueberries again. In the seven days before the run I only ran one time and two miles at that. I did not expect to do that well and was just going to be happy with a finish. My time ended up being 26:56 (8:41m) and I placed 5th in my age group and 53rd overall. Not as well as last years, but considering the knee trouble and having cut back quite a bit on the amount of running I will take it!
When I realized the half was not going to happen this June, I switched over and set my sights on a sprint triathlon. I've spend about four days a week swimming and two days a week running with one day of a swim/run mixed in. Hopefully I'll get my SIL's bike in a few weeks and the bike training will start. I'm shooting for my first sprint tri in August. I'm having to realize that the half just might not be a possibility (however I want to give it another try in the fall after the sprint and when the weather gets cooler) but I have rediscovered my love for swimming after a long 19 year break and I'm super excited about that! I swam competitively when I was little from about the age of four to eight. My sister and brother both swam too and it was a huge part of our lives. When I was eight we lost our amazing coach and because I was a child who was not self disciplined and would not work hard unless pushed, so I ended up quitting. Let's be honest, I'm still this way as an adult. I hate to admit this, but unless I have something like an app that posts on Facebook or a friend working out with me I tend to cut myself short. I won't do the whole workout or I won't push myself as hard as I should. This is why my friends on Facebook get to be annoyed by all the Nike Plus and Pace club posts from my workouts.
So for now I am just running between two and three mile runs twice a week and doing four days of swim workouts that average between 1500 and 2400 yards. In about five more weeks we will up the yardage as we switch to the intermediate level and do practices that will range between 2000 and 3200 yards.
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