"it's not the miles, it's how you live them"

The week I realized I had ran twenty miles over the course of seven days was milestone to me.  Just a few months ago my favorite sport was freeze dancing with my students at the end of class, but now, its running.  To date, I have ran three 5k's and a one mile walk/run.  I feel like now I can call myself a runner.

Running was never fun until this year.  While growing up, I always dreaded the end of ball practice sprints, or the punishment kill-a-drills, also known as suicides.  I mean, seriously, why not call them something a little more encouraging?  Running was punishment...period...and for the kid who didn't like to get in trouble, I didn't like punishment!

But now, things are different.  Running is about accomplishing something.  Doing something.  Being something.

Running is also about sharing something.  I have found that since I have started running, it seems to bring people together. 

I was a counselor at three camps this summer.  One of those camps, Camp WOW, I knew I needed to make sure I kept up my running schedule.  I would get back from this camp and have a week before our first 5k.  I was worried about getting out of the running routine, so I mentioned to Kayla, one of the other couselors with our "13 ladies" that I wanted to get up early and go running Sunday morning.  Turns out, she enjoyed running too!  Actually, a couple of the girls that was there early went that next morning with us.  It also turned out that alot of people liked to run.  Our third counselor, Hannah, is a runner too, so we rotated who went running, and I recall someone saying we were the "running cabin."  This just thrilled me because I loved my new running addiction and didn't get behind on my schedule and was pumped for my first 5k!!!

And what a 5K it was!  I could not have asked for a more positive experience for our first official run.  It was The Color Run, and by the end of the morning, we were absolutely stained with powdery goodness from head to toe!  Finish time was about 46 minutes, which I felt was a great accomplishment!  Our awesome shirts got lots of compliments too! The backs read "Please let there be someone back there reading this."  Thankfully my running buddy has a great sense of humor too and agreed that would be a great quote for our shirts!

 

 

 

5K number two was a blast also.  Over the course of the summer, my running buddy Larissa and I talked a few of our friends into running with us, and one of them, Jessica, was almost finished with the C25K program so she ran our second 5k with us!  We did great, and Lari and I shaved about 4 minutes off of our first time!  Woot Woot!!!!  This was the Run4Don in Gainsboro.

 

 



Then we got really adventurous.  There was a 1 mile breast cancer walk two saturdays from our Run4Don.  We talked all the girls that had been running/walking with us all summer into doing this one together...and even had an extra one join us!  I joked about it was going to be the fastest mile ever, but actually was about 3 minutes slower than what we had been running.

 

 

Which leads me to my most recent 5k experience!  A few months ago, I found there was going to be a Color Me RAD 5k in Knoxville.  I thought this would be a great opportunity to run with some of my camp buddies again so we planned it and even made t-shirts!  This was also the weekend starting my fall break, so the suspense leading up to Friday afternoon was almost unbearable.  Not only would I be leaving school to have a break from teaching, but I would be heading to Knoxville to be reunited with a few of my favorite fellow counselors from Camp WOW!!!!  Words really cannot describe how much I bonded over the week at camp with some of these people!  I was sooooo excited to see them!  And to be running together???  I knew it would be an awesome memory making weekend!  Hannah, Bridgette, and Stephanie were all going to be running the RAD 5k with me, along with Hannah's cousin-in-law Emily.  Steph ended up not coming, but the other three and I had an absolute blast!  This color run had more color zones along the course, so we were more colorful when it finished, and we stayed for much of the after-party, which made us even more painted!  In actuality, when you're surrounded by awesome people, you always have an awesome time, and that is what we did!  The only negative thing is having to say goodbye to your friends when you live what feels like a million miles away from them!  I love these girls bunches and wish we could hang out all the time!

 

 

All in all, after doing three 5k's and a 1 miler, I am definitely adicted to this new running sport.  New to me, but definitely not new to mankind.  I've thought possibly the reason I feel so good after I run is because I'm tapping into something my ancestors did for survival.  Long ago, they ran to catch prey, and ran to escape predators.  After I run, I feel refreshed, I feel rejuvinated, I feel like a better me.  I feel like I can do anything after I run.  The sense of accomplishment, the increased heart rate, the "runner's high" from endorphines creates an energy that is pure happiness.  Running with friends makes it even better.  We always high-five after we run, and its a tradition I love!

Truely, "it's not the miles, it's how you live them!"

I'm making myself EPIC...

Its been a while since I last blogged...actually its been many whiles!  Blogging doesn't rank high on the list of priorities when you are living a highly adventurous lifestyle...but I've started something new that i want to document.

Running.

Yes, I've started running.  The kid that always hated doing any kind of sprint or distance jog...any kind of running at all...I hated it, but something inside me has changed, and I think its for the better!

A couple of months ago I played softball with some friends in a tournament in town.  I was pumped about this because I haven't gotten to play softball for a few years since college.  Well, being pumped switched to being dissappointed!  We played three games, and the short version is I didn't perform as I remembered I could do years before.  I didn't get any good hits, and lets just say I think a snail could have went around the bases as fast as I did.  So what do you do when you think you're washed up and can't do anything anymore?  Give up?  Eat cake and watch tv?  I didn't...I started running.

The tournament was on Sunday, and I had rehearsal Monday night, so Tuesday I started running.  I had downloaded a podcast for the Couch to 5K program, and I wanted to just do something to be doing something again.  That's how you get it back, right?  You just jump in there and do it!  Well day one wasn't that bad, so even though it said to have a day of rest between runs, I thought "why not...you've got muscle somewhere hidden under all of this fat!"  Day two went pretty good, and I said to myself "Yeah, I can do this!"

Then the next day I woke up feeling like I had been hit by a truck...what happened to my amazingness???  Surely my body wouldn't be aching all over and chilling from two evenings of running!  Turns out I had the Flu.  I called in work the next three days and lost 7 pounds simply from not eating anything for about a week.  Maybe I should just stop eating to lose weight...no...bad idea. 

A few weeks went by while I recovered from the flu and I hadn't went running again.  Running twice made me get the flu...or so I was telling myself. 

Then something happened.  One of my former students, who has turned out to be a pretty great friend, was home from college for the summer.  She, my neighbor, and I had went walking a couple of times when she said something about counting calories to lose weight.  Out of nowhere I said "Lets start running."  I told her about the C25K program I had found online, and said I wanted a running buddy.  Walking doesn't really make me feel like I am exercising.  I mean, if I'm not drenched with sweat and look like I'm about to die, I don't feel like I've done anything!  So the next day, I was prepared with two mp3 players with the track downloaded, and told my new running buddy "hey, we're running today" when we met to walk again.  She was not dressed for running, but she did it with me.  After we did Day 1 of Week 1 we were both hot and sweaty, and I finally felt like I was doing something again. 

I had saw a quote that said "If not now, when?" This made me think I need to stop putting things off and start making a change.

Well, we are now on week six of this C25K program, and let me just say "I love running!"  I absolutely do!  I feel great after I run, and we actually ran 20 minutes the other day when we finished week 5!!!  Its amazing how much of this is a mental game with yourself!  I feel like I've grown so much over the month and a half that we have been doing this, and I know I wouldn't have been able to do this and keep going if it wasn't for having my running buddy!  Words cannot describe the gratitude I have for her sticking with me and running with me everystep of the way!  Someday we will look back at that life changing day we started running and be thankful.  Actually, I already have and am!

I wish I had blogged and captured this journey the whole entirety of it thus far, but better late than never!  It just feels great to be doing something again!  We're signed up to run our first 5K at the end of July, and I can't wait!  I know it will be hard, but we have come so far along this journey!  All I want to do is finish!  I know we won't run the whole thing, because I want to stop and take pictures along the way because it is a COLOR RUN!!!  Definitely need some epic pictures of this, so running the whole way is not the goal...just making it will be enough.  I feel like we will be able to run a big majority of it, and the colorfulness will be epic!  I plan on trying to blog more with this new adventure, and who knows...a new me may appear before its over...because I'm making myself EPIC...