Don't you even want to know why I didn't write to you or glance in your general direction? Fine. I tell you anyway. While in China, I carried around my big, beautiful, mega-pixel-hungry camera. I took pictures of everything and everyone. I posted approximately 8 billion of them on my blog without editing them or resizing them. I did this because I had no resizing software in China--only a tiny borrowed laptop for getting on the web. My photo space allotment from Blogger got all used up. No more pictures for me. No more blog posts for me. So, I'm slowly going back through the old posts and changing out 4.5 mega pixel photos for the 100 kilobyte versions. Photo number 2,653 resized and uploaded. Check! Photo number 2,654 resized and uploaded. Check! Sounds like fun, huh? Don't you want to come hang out with me? Resize photos? No?
Hello?
That's cool. I'll just talk to myself. I do that quite well these days, anyway. So, speaking of changes, I've made a few in my life since returning from China. One of them: I've decided to run a half-marathon. 13.1 miles. When I told my mother about it, she looked at me blankly and said, "Why?" which is not actually a bad question. Why do people run these silly races, anyway? I'm pretty sure I'm doing it because I think I could....and it's on my list of things to do at least once in my life....and being thirty-one now, I don't have any grand illusions about this kind of thing getting any easier. So, I'm doing it. After deciding on it, my prayer went something like this:
Dear Lord,
What have I done?
Please help me.
Amen.
Then I went outside and started training.
Part of my logic to do a half-marathon involved the fact that I'm not a total newbie to running. I've had flings with it off and on since college. Nothing serious of course. Certainly no real commitment like an actual race or a jogging club. Asthma and bad knees always held me back from really marrying into the life. I never ran more than a few miles at a time. Really hot weather and really cold weather were instant deal-breakers, of course. That and paper-cuts. And laundry.
But since moving to the country, I've been enjoying running more and more. I have fresh air, no traffic, dirt roads that are easy on my joints, a dog...or two. Dog #1 is mine. Dog #2, not mine. His name is...well, I have no idea what his name is, but Hopers named him Stuart, so that's what we call him.
He lives across the street and is the sidekick of our dog, Poppy. He makes a great sidekick because he's short, goofy, slightly annoying, and follows Poppy everywhere. In fact, I think he's more of a stalker, than a sidekick. He's always at our house. When Poppy isn't interested in playing, he sits and stares at her.
 |
| I always feel like Somebody's waaaatchin' meee-eee.... |
Whenever I come out the front door and start running down the driveway, Poppy immediately knows what time it is. She throws herself into the air and zips off at lightning speed across the street to get Stuart (if he's not already here). And Stuart comes loping out into the street with his tongue flopping and ears flapping. The two dogs zig-zag the path in front of me for the entire run--my trail blazers.
Another oddity about running out here are my mental mile markers. From the house, down the driveway and the street, to the beginning of the dirt road is 2 tenths of a mile. From there, it gets a little bit trickier. I know I've gone a half mile when I reach the sign on the right that says "Begin National Forest Boundary," and I know that one mile is at the patch of red clay after the first patch of gravel on the mostly sandy road that is just past the second trail on the left. Easy, right? My two mile marker is the leaning pine tree on the right side edge of the road in the open pine and palmetto forest. After that, I know I've made it two and a half miles if I reach the path on the right in the area of the pine forest where it is open (not thick and tangled with bushes) on both sides.
And that's as far as I've run. 2.5 miles out and 2.5 miles back to give me 5 miles. Since my "official" training began, I ran about 12 miles the first week, 13 miles the second week, and 13.1 miles this week. I'm not exactly breaking any records. In fact, I'm probably shamefully slow. But whatever, I have until February to embarrass myself in public. All I want to do is finish. But not last. Please don't let me be last!
If only I had a week to run the half-marathon. Thirteen point one miles in a week?
Check!
1 comment:
Good for you!!! You can finish and you won't be last.
when i used to run i always had to run at least 5 miles or just couldn't seem to get the high i wanted . i would run 3 to 4x a week . Sometimes #4 one was a little longer but not much and sometimes was on a trail (which i absolutely loved and miss.
I ran the Tallahassee marathon on my 24th b-day (12 year, oops almost 13 years ago). then the next year i ran the 1/2 marathon instead of the marathon. it was such a great day in January to run!
You don't have to be an expert. Be consistent. Endurance. If you can do a few long runs (and they don't have to be 13 miles) you can do it.
i love your landmarks:)
All you runners are making me jealous. After this baby is born i am going to make an effort to get back to it. i miss it so!!!
Post a Comment