my running life

sometimes this lovely park is part of my route

What are you running away from? My responsibilities, duh. But I think the better question is what are you running towards? Our experiences shape who we are today, so I'm going to tell you a little bit about my relationship with running through the years.

I have always liked to run. In elementary school, I was part of the track and field team but endurance was not my forte. I was a sprinter, through and through. From grades 6 - 8, every September, we would run this route called the "Fall Classic" which was probably 1.3-1.5 km long. It took me so long!!! I think my best time was 8 and a half minutes. In high school, I was kind of part of track and field…not too intense about it. Still a sprinter, still felt like I needed to “work on my endurance” but never got around to it. I finally got into running longer distances in my first year of university partially because I had a crush on this boy who happened to be on the varsity cross country team (shout out to you) but mostly because I felt the need to get outside. So get outside I did. Not going to lie, my first couple of runs felt terrible. I probably wanted to collapse on the side of the road in a heap due to exhaustion. We’ve all been there. This is because I just decided to go from zero to 5k real quick. Problematic. So I decided to go from couch to 5k, at a moderate pace because everything in moderation. For anyone who wants to get started running, I highly recommend this training plan.

What I love most about running is that during the run, all I focus on is my breathing, pace, and surroundings. Everything else fades into the background. I let go of my day - everything else can wait. This is my time. I love running around my neighbourhood, seeing puppers, and through park trails, inhaling the scent of nature. I can't run on treadmills. It has to be outside, even in the dead of winter. Currently I try to run two to three times a week, for a distance of 5 km. I know…I have my work cut out for me.

In 2015, I ran two 10k road races, they were one week apart from each other (Sporting Life 10k and Mississauga Marathon 10k). You can say I got a little excited. My time for both was 59 minutes. My feet blistered because I was wearing Nike Free’s and they are not suited for my feet…more on that later. I don’t think I trained sufficiently, to be honest, I just kind of went for it. In 2016, no races were run. I was planning on running a half marathon but it didn’t end up happening for a variety of reasons that are all in reality just excuses.

So here we are almost halfway through 2017, finally registered for a half marathon road race with a little motivation from one of my best friends who will be running the 10k (she also has a blog)! It is one of the Oakville Marathon races, being held September 24, 2017. The countdown begins. My next post will feature my exciting half training plan. It’ll be in metric measurements.

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