running and blogging

The first post. How monumental. Okay, not really, but hopefully blogging will lead to something monumental this fall. Something bigger than my day-to-day reality, bigger than my life here in Fayetteville. Something like a marathon. Hmmm....

I can remember the very first time that I ever ran. I had recently graduated from college and had never in my life done anything athletic. Ever. I was out of shape. It was sometime in the summer months of 1999 and I decided that running would be a good way to deal with stress. So I ran around my neighborhood of rent houses in the early evenings when it was still hot as hell. I think it took me a full month of running, but that first mile was so incredibly sweet. I was proud of doing it.

Over the years I began doing lots of 5K's and a few 10K's but primarily ran for fun, mostly as a way to collect my thoughts and wind down after work. I also found a fun group of hash runners. Those were good times. The group liked to say that they were "a drinking group with a running problem". Some months I'd really get after it hard, others i'd lay low for awhile, but always coming back to lacing up and hitting the trails.

This past December a good friend told me she was going to run the Tulsa Half Marathon. At the time not only did I not have the desire to try a half-marathon, I also thought I physically couldn't do it. When Tulsa went well for her, she mentioned the Little Rock Half Marathon as her next race and asked if I'd like to run it with her. Something clicked and I said yes.

We trained together, along with another friend, for two really cold months. I loved every minute of it and found a completely new appreciation for pushing my legs and soul beyond maximum capacity. The LR Half Marathon went so well that we ran the Bentonville Half Marathon the very next weekend. And the Hogeye Half Marathon a month later.

But it was after Little Rock that things changed for me. In fact, it happened about 45 seconds after crossing the finish line in the downtown river market. I knew that I wanted to go the real distance. I wanted to run a marathon. So I am. On October 10th, 2010. In Chicago, Illinois.