Born to run! (... sort of)

Last week I said I would run in a Turkey Trot race on Thanksgiving morning with Keegan and a few of his siblings. I signed up thinking it was a 5K only to find out on Sunday that it was actually 5 miles. Whoops...

For the past month I've really been keeping with my running, consistently going at least 5 times a week. I got off track when I went to Austin but since then I've progressively working my way back up. It took about a week for me to be able to run 1.5 miles each day, then I moved my way up to 2, and now I run 3 each day. On Sunday I ran 4 miles but that was the farthest I'd ever run at one time. On Monday and Tuesday I ran 3 miles each, then I ran 2.5 miles on Wednesday. I was a bit nervous on Thursday and I was pretty confident that I'd have to walk the last mile. There were several large-ish hills on the route we ran, and it was outside (obviously) which is something new for me because I always run on treadmills and occasionally the indoor track in Duke's gym. But I did it! My pace on the hills was quite slow, but I wanted to pace myself so I could keep running the whole way. My time was 52 minutes and 9 seconds, which was much better than I was hoping for. I usually "run" (read: jog) at speeds between 5 and 6mph, so 5 miles would have taken an hour at a 5mph pace, so I averaged my faster speed for this race. I think it will help me a lot with running now because when I'm getting tired at the 3 mile mark I can always think "Hey, you already ran 5 miles, you can stick out the rest of this!" I know 5 miles is not really that far (especially considering 5 or 6 of the kids in BME ran a half marathon a few weekends ago) but I still feel proud. :-)

Once I started the weight-lifting class I gained 6 pounds, but since that time I've lost about 9 pounds. So I'm 3 pounds lighter than I was when I started the class, but I know that I'm a lot stronger and more muscular. My clothing is also starting to fit better, so that's a plus. I'm hoping to reach my target weight before our trip to Costa Rica, which is in about 3 months. I think that is plenty of time for me to slim down a little bit, and my gym teacher is really helpful and is already helping me plan my workout schedule for next semester. I don't want to lose all of my progress!