The First Step

I’ve been considering starting a running blog for a couple of weeks now. I’ve been drawing inspiration from others’ blogs, so I’m starting my own to keep myself motivated, and maybe help motivate others who stumble across this site.

I’m 25, I’m an engineer, and I’ve never been a runner before. Growing up, I played soccer and tennis, but for some reason I never had the drive to win or be the best in athletics. I liked to play fullback so I didn’t have to run as much up and down the field, and at tennis practice I’d choose to do sprints over endurance training every time. I hated running.

I don’t remember who convinced me to sign up for my first 5k in my senior year of college -- actually I’m pretty sure I did it because it was a fundraiser for THON, and everything THON-related is awesome… until you are trying to run 3.1 miles when you do not run and you get passed by a lady pushing a stroller, uphill.

My race history:
THON 5k October 23, 2005 ::: 40:06
Resolution Run 5k December 31, 2006 ::: 34:57
Turkey Trot 5k November 22, 2007 ::: 29:26
Turkey Trot 5k November 27, 2008 ::: 33:10
Turkey Trot 5k November 26, 2009 ::: 30:25

Some races used chip time, and some were clocked the old-fashioned way. And no, I did not remember all of these times off the top on my head. I love google. I do remember, however, that 2007 and 2009 were the only two races I ran entirely.

I didn’t really ever go to the gym and work out in high school or college. In high school my exercise came from tennis and marching band; and in college I played non-competitive IM sports, walked everywhere, and tore it up on the dance floor. I could barely run a mile when I started actually working out in fall 2006 when I started my new job (with a gym on site!). As you can see from my races, since then I have pretty much concentrated on being able to finish the 5k.

In January 2010 I joined a running group at work, primarily for camaraderie since I have been at this job for less than a year and wanted to branch out and form some new relationships. Here’s the kicker- this group is training for a marathon. But all I had ever run was 3.5 miles, once. And 95% of all the running I’d done had been inside, on the treadmill. And I’m the only civilian (i.e. not in the military, i.e. least disciplined person, i.e. least athletic) in the group. This should be interesting…. Follow me on my journey.