Day 2: How I chose Half-Marathons

I have 3 sisters and no brothers (well, no blood related brothers, but I do have one brother-in-law). I'm second. We currently span the ages of 19-31. Sister #1 lives with her husband in Brooklyn. They're self-proclaimed vagabonds and love to travel. New York City is their current adventure. Sisters #3 and #4 live in McKenzie, TN where they both attend Bethel University. I'm outside of Atlanta. There is one time per year that we're guaranteed a visit home that includes all 4 of us, and that is Christmas. Not Christmas Day, necessarily, but the Christmas "season". Other than that, I'll try to make it back to Nashville during the summer with the littles are home from school, or my older sister and BIL will come through Atlanta to visit their best friends and I'll get to see them then.

So we talked one day. The four of us. And we decided that we wanted to do something that would allow us to intentionally see each other at a time that wasn't Christmas. We also discussed how out of shape we all were and how we wanted to do something that would be good for us and fun too. So we settled on half-marathons. We thought it would be unrealistic to try and schedule one every year, so we decided on every two years, with the first one being in 2014. Since we are currently still in 2013, I cannot tell you yet if our plan worked. I'm on schedule to do a half every other year because I ran my first one last November in 2012. I've finally coerced the littles into training for something, and the three of us will run a 15K in January, but there are 11 whole other months after that for the 4 of us to fit in a half-marathon. We talked about trying to take a trip somewhere to run it. That way, we'd see each other for a weekend and be able to split hotel costs 4 ways and see new places. Or if it was a year that we needed to save money, we'd meet in a place where one of us lives so we wouldn't have hotel costs. There are exceptions written into our deal for sickness, pregnancy, new babies, and other various life events that would prevent someone from traveling or running 13.1 miles. [Side note: if one of us had a newborn, I'm pretty sure the other three of us could travel to that person and run there. I'm SURE that could be arranged.]

Anyway...that's the plan. We figured it's good for us. 13.1 miles isn't too terribly hard on your body, and it doesn't take forever to train for that distance. It's also good for us emotionally because if you have sisters, you know...sometimes you just need your sisters. Hopefully, we can convince Sister #1 to start training too, because as of January, the other three of us will be running 9.3 miles, and that's not so far from 13.1. :)


This post is a part of The Nester's 31 Days blogging project. Click here to see the directory of all 31 posts related to my topic: 31 Days to Retraining.

Day 1: Why?

I decided to start with the "Why?" of REtraining for a race because I'm still kind of working that out for myself. I actually love running. I know some people hate it, and I can understand that. I personally hate jumping jacks, and you will never see me doing them joyfully. So I understand the anti-running mentality.

I used to think I hated running. Or that I wasn't "good" at it (can you even BE bad at running? Isn't it just a basic life skill?). Then, one day in the early fall of 2011, I decided to try it. I downloaded the Nike+ running app to my little iPhone, and took off. I ran one quarter of a mile without stopping and it freaked me out, so I stopped. Yes that is the truth. I thought I'd pass out or collapse if I ran more than a few steps, so I was shocked when I ran a whole .25 of a mile. The next day, I ran an entire mile. I'd love to tell you that "the rest is history" and I'm a disciplined, steady runner whether I have a race to train for or not, but that's not true. A couple of months after that first running adventure, I broke my toe and that put me out of commission for a while.

Fast forward 6 months or so. I walked a 5K in April of 2012, and decided after that to find a race and get back to training. I'm from Nashville, but moved to the Atlanta area in 2011, so I looked for half-marathons in either place. (See tomorrow's post on what made me decide to run half-marathons.) I found one I wanted to do in Nashville on November 10 and found a training program I could actually see myself doing. And from THERE, the rest is history. I ran my first half-marathon last November--almost a year ago now. My goals for the race were: 1. Don't finish last. 2. Don't fall down. 3. Run the whole time. I'm happy to tell you that I reached all 3 goals! (I dream real big.)

From then on, I've been inconsistent. That's pretty much the story of my life. I commit to do something, and then miss some days weeks months, and I kind of give up. I've found, however, that I'm less likely to give up if I have accountability. If someone is counting on me, I'll do my part. That's why I chose to write about getting back in to running for my 31 Days adventure. If you (whoever you are) are reading this, you're holding me accountable whether you know it or not. So, thank you. :) I also managed to talk my little sisters into running a 15K (9.3 miles) with me in Atlanta in January. I made them a training schedule based on the Hal Higdon training plan, and I'm going to stick to the same plan they're doing too. I'm going to specifically work on getting faster this time. We're starting with low miles so we can build a solid base, and I'd like to be faster. Since speed was not one of my goals for my first half, I have something to work off of and I can try to beat my time in the next one.

So here we are. I ran two days last week to get ready for this week, but today is the REAL start of my training plan, and it's also the start of the 31 Days of blogging. Thanks for being here and going on this journey with me. I want to take care of myself--mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually--and running benefits all of those areas for me. I have lots of reasons why I want to run again, but I feel like God wants to take me somewhere deeper with it and with this blogging process. I'm ready for it, and I'm happy to take you with me!

Loves.

31 Days to Retraining

Once upon a time, I ran a half-marathon. This is the account of me getting back into running after nearly 5 months of...not running, and the adventure God is taking me on in the process.

Day 1: Why?

Day 2: How I chose Half-Marathons 

Day 3: A Confession 

Day 4: Balance 

Day 5: Weekend Running

Day 6: Sunday Runday? 

Day 7: Finishing Well 

Day 8: How Do You Know?

Day 9: Making Time

Day 10: Sometimes I Forget

Day 11: Fuel

Day 12: Let It Go

Day 13: Early Mornings

Day 14: A Different Kind of Fuel

Day 15: Struggle

Day 16: What We Need

Day 17: Listen

Day 18: Focus

Day 19: Even if...

Day 20: Choose Wisely

Day 21: Begin Again

Day 22: Just Keep Going

Day 23: Lifers

Day 24: Sleep?

Day 25: Time

Day 26: Decide what to be

Day 27: Happy Birthday Mom!

Day 28: Recovery

Day 29: Expectations

Day 30: Real Life

Day 31: Grace