Almost 4 years ago, single and living with three other amazing women, I started to take up running.  To be honest, it was torture.  I’ve NEVER liked running.  As a kid, I played soccer, which I loved, but the running part?  I could have done without.  Endurance was not my strong suit, and the long runs we were forced to do during practice in high school was one of many reasons I dropped soccer after 10+ years of loving it.  For the next 6 years, I pretty much depended on the occasional frisbee game or dance class to keep me in shape, which wasn’t exactly a recipe for success.  Finally, a year after graduating from college and reaching my peak weight, I realized I had to do something. Anything.  And it needed to be easy, plus fit into my abnormal work schedule.  So I took up running.

At this point in my life, I probably couldn’t run a mile without huffing and puffing and stopping repeatedly.  But I was too chicken to try, so that didn’t even matter.  With the partnership of two of my roommates, we decided to be wise about our new workout regime – we did the Couch to 5K running program.  The first few weeks were weird, and at times embarrassing.  I was so ridiculously out of shape and running for 5 minutes straight was quite a feat.  And yet, I had the guts to sign up for my first race – a 5K in the first week of December.  Seriously?  What on earth was I thinking?

Well, the race came and went – I finished, which was the most important part!

That's me in the middle, right before our frigid race

My time was respectable, but nothing to get super excited about.  At this point, I was just glad to be running, and to be in shape.

About to finish!

Unfortunately though, I didn’t keep it up.  Without a goal or a race to motivate me, running soon disappeared from my weekly schedule.  Winter weather didn’t help, and the monotony of the gym (plus the cost!) wasn’t exactly alluring either.

I did, however, get into various kinds of aerobic kickboxing, pilates, and yoga using DVDs at home.  I enjoyed this greatly, and it helped me get in great shape for my wedding.  But, my running endurance had completely dissipated after a year of not running regularly.

After getting married and moving to Iowa, my husband and I started going to the gym regularly in an effort to stay in shape.  Holding each other accountable helped a lot at 6 am every Tuesday and Thursday  But I soon grew weary and bored – I needed something to work towards.

Then, last Christmas, I received an i-pod nano as a gift.  I really credit this with running making a resurgence in my life – seriously!  I used a little bit of extra birthday money and bought the Nike+ Sport Kit, which is a spiffy gadget that tracks your runs, pace, and calories.  Better yet, you can set your workout to specific music, for a specific distance, and at the click of a button, you can be notified of your progress.  For an ADD runner like me, this was WELL worth the $30 price tag.

With my Nike+ and free gym access, I was slowly on my way to returning to running.  Several months ago, I got more serious about it and began to revisit the Couch to 5K program.  I started midway through and slowly worked my way back to being able to run a 5K (3.1 miles).  I set a goal for myself – run a 10K in the fall.  Seemed reasonable, and it would give me a lot of time to work on my less than stellar running pace.

But then, my sister got involved  (Love ‘ya sis!)  One random day, she posted a message to me on facebook asking if I wanted to compete in a half-marathon with her in August.  I thought she was nuts.  Thirteen miles?  THIRTEEN!?!  Seriously, that was just a bit over my head.  And yet, it definitely intrigued me.  I thought about it, asked a few friends, consulted my husband, and then decided that I was in.  And so was my sister, and her husband, AND her husband’s brother, plus my brother too.  It became a family affair overnight!

And so, I’ve got a new goal in mind – the Gopher Badger Half-Marathon on August 14th.  I added a widget in my sidebar here that has my runs so you can keep up with me and see how I’m doing.  I’ve been sick recently, so my running has taken a bit of a dip, but I’m looking forward to picking up where I left off.  At this point, I’m pretty comfortable running 3 1/2 miles.  Even though I’m behind schedule from being sick, I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to do the 13+ miles by mid-August.  But honestly, I’m still VERY nervous, because this means I’m becoming a runner  Not sure how I feel about that yet…