My Running Story

I know there are a lot of people who are discouraged about becoming a runner.

Believe me, I never thought I would be training for a half marathon! Yet, here I am, Garmin strapped to my wrist and my face still rosy from having just completed a 4.5 mile training run in the cold.

And 4.5 miles is a “short run”!

I used to be a “sprinter” in high school. I think I was the 3rd fastest girl in my grade. I loved to run fast but I dreaded running for a long time. A couple months after my knee injury and subsequent surgery, I began to run on the treadmill a bit, to get back into shape. At first I could only go for 15 minutes before I had to stop. I worked my way up to 30 minutes before giving it up. 

In university, I remember going for my very first real outside run with JH. (JH has been a “real”  runner for a long time. She was even on the cross-country team in university for a year.) I remember getting outside and realizing that it was cold. We started running and my ears began to burn with pain as the cold wind blew into them. I was out of breath within 10 minutes. I told her to run ahead. And I gave up on running once again.

At some point in my Senior year, I decided I wanted to try running again. I’m not sure why, but this time I was much more motivated. So JH and I went. And this time, I didn’t give up! We went on more runs! I remember the first time I ran for 40 minutes I was SO proud of myself.

I continued my running after graduation. I was up to running for an hour! A co-worker of mine convinced me to train for an 8k race with him. I thought with all the running I was doing, why not channel it into training for a race! So I did! I soon began to understand the love/hate relationship with running. When you’re in training mode, sometimes running just HURTS and some days you just DO NOT want to run anymore. But I persisted. And my persistence paid off and I placed 15th out of 80 in my age category in my very first race!

I definitely developed racing fever after this and immediately signed up for a 10K race a month later. I continued to train hard and ended up placing 56th out of 490! (There were a lot more participants in the 10k).

 
Above is my friend Alli and I showing off our participant medals after we finished the race.

And then after that… I took a break from races. I actually took a break from running altogether for a while.

I think it was a much needed break. I needed to do something unstructured for a little while.

But now, I’m back to training! It feels really good to have something to work towards!

Running isn’t for everyone. Running is HARD. I’ll admit, during today’s run I was FREEZING and out of breath and sore.

Running takes a long time to get “good at”(whatever that means, right?!) and it takes a lot of patience. It’s not something you can DIVE right into, because you might get injured. So you have to take it slooowww. I started out only being able to run for15 minutes. 

You get out of it what you put into it. And, on some days, like today, it HURTS!

So, why do we do it then?

Because finishing a good run makes you feel like a million bucks. Because getting your second wind when a heart-pumping song comes on your ipod is such a rush! Because it’s a CHALLENGE! Because you can do it anywhere, with anyone or with no one. And because running makes you feel STRONG, ACCOMPLISHED and HEALTHY!

Why do you run? Or why don’t you?