Runnaaang!
I'm signing up for a 10K this January in St. Paul, which means that I will run the longest run I've ever run in one of the coldest places on earth during the coldest time of year in that place, and honestly I'm really excited about this. To me, running has become more than just a way to blow off steam at the end of the day...it's turning into something I can really challenge myself with and really push myself to become better. I always feel like I have the drive to get in shape for a long run or the capacity to run it harder than most. The thing is, through all of high school, the only sport I ever participated in was golf, and I really didn't care much for golf so I hardly ever went to practice and eventually got kicked off the team because of it. Which means that I was kicked out of the most physically unstrenuous sport in all of high school. lol.
And it's not like I have no athletic ability; I've just never really put it to the test. And I really, really want to put it to the test and find out what my limits are. And at the age of 27, there isn't much more time before my body will have a harder and harder time with this sort of thing, so I want to get as much out of it now as I can.
My goal in 2012 is to finish a 5K in under 20 minutes. Today I can run a 5K in 23:45, which I was able to do after being in pretty poor running shape, having run like 1 or 2 times a week before I timed that. But this is probably one of those deals where it's easy to hit 23 minutes, harder to hit 22, even harder to make it to 21, and I better be in damn good shape to hit 20. But I love the thought of aiming for something that I am kind of skeptical of my ability to achieve because if I actually manage to do it, it will feel awesome. Right now I'm bigger on running fast rather than running far, partly because I like my free time at the end of the day, and training for long distance runs is a huge time sink. And it really doesn't take more than 3 miles a day to get most of the physical benefits of exercise.
There is another reason I'm getting into running, but I don't have time to talk about that now. More on that later...
And it's not like I have no athletic ability; I've just never really put it to the test. And I really, really want to put it to the test and find out what my limits are. And at the age of 27, there isn't much more time before my body will have a harder and harder time with this sort of thing, so I want to get as much out of it now as I can.
My goal in 2012 is to finish a 5K in under 20 minutes. Today I can run a 5K in 23:45, which I was able to do after being in pretty poor running shape, having run like 1 or 2 times a week before I timed that. But this is probably one of those deals where it's easy to hit 23 minutes, harder to hit 22, even harder to make it to 21, and I better be in damn good shape to hit 20. But I love the thought of aiming for something that I am kind of skeptical of my ability to achieve because if I actually manage to do it, it will feel awesome. Right now I'm bigger on running fast rather than running far, partly because I like my free time at the end of the day, and training for long distance runs is a huge time sink. And it really doesn't take more than 3 miles a day to get most of the physical benefits of exercise.
There is another reason I'm getting into running, but I don't have time to talk about that now. More on that later...