Patty

So yesterday, I had a lunch date with my friend, Patty, who is also running the half marathon with me in November!  She has done 2 half marathons so far.  She's like me, in that last summer, she started from scratch, and worked her way up to a half marathon!  

Here's a picture-  Patty is 2nd from the left, then Beth, and then our friend Cate who runs as well, but told me yesterday she'd stick with 5K races ;)

Well anyways, our lunch turned into an awesome 4 hour conversation :)  We talked a lot about running and she gave me a lot of helpful advice, especially since she started from zero as well.  She's also a middle school teacher (we're both crazy, we know), so we talked about school some too, but tried to steer away from it because it's summertime and we didn't want to think too much about school!  She also hooked me up with a Fitness magazine that is the special half marathon edition, so I plan to read that today :)

Patty is an amazing friend and is VERY encouraging to me and so many others!  I'm so thankful for her!

Pictures

I had fun putting up pictures on that last post... so here are some more of people I've mentioned in the blog so far :)

Here's Beth (the one I'm running the race with) and I at a NC State basketball game:

Here's Dee and I at my graduation (she was a year older and came back from Atlanta to surprise us for graduation!):

And here is Dee and I (again) after Verb Day (aka field day for college kids)... Dee rediscovered this picture on Facebook and the caption was:  "This is us and our "did we seriously just run that much" face."  We played some bean bag game that required us to run up and down hill sprinting. It was ridiculous.

How it all began

June 30, 2011

So, I was talking with my one of my good friends, Beth, and she told me that she had just signed up for a half marathon in November of this year, and how excited she was about it.  Without a second to spare she then said, "YOU SHOULD DO IT WITH ME!"

Hmmmm.... So Beth has done two half marathons already, with a few smaller races along the way.  Each time she has asked me if I wanted to join, and I'd always say, "Nope!  I'm good!"  But for some reason this time, I was like well, let's think through this.  Maybe?

Let's flashback:  I was on my college swim team (Division III), and I was in the best shape I've ever been in.  I loved swimming so much (especially because you didn't know you were sweating!), and it was always fun to glide and float through the water.  Swimming is a winter sport, and so in the spring when the weather got nice, I would go for short runs to stay in shape.  After swimming every day from October to February, I was burnt out of swimming, so running was a good option to keep in shape.  One of my friends, Dee, and I would go workout together a few times a week.  It helped the motivation!  So that's when I first got into some running.

And then I graduated and continued to workout that summer while job searching.  That August, I got hired to be a middle school math teacher (I'm crazy, I know!).  Well, once school got going, I was exhausted at the end of each day (it takes a good month to get used to teaching again!).  So needless to say, the working out didn't continue.  I considered my dealing with 13 year olds all day enough of a workout!

So here we are almost 2 years later.  I haven't had a regular workout schedule in quite a while.

Here are the top 10 reasons I talked myself into taking on this adventure (in no particular order):

1) I need to get back in shape.
2) I will get to train with Beth, who is one of my favorite people :), so that entails lots of good laughs and accountability!  And she lives right down the road!
3) This half marathon in particular has a lot of live bands, which will make it all the more fun, and it's in a beautiful city!
4) Two of my other friends, Katie A. and Patty, are going to be running the same half marathon with me.  Also, another friend, Katie C., is running a marathon as well (and they are all here in town, so yay for more running buddies!).
5) I'll get to make some super fun playlists for my iPod, which means their might be singing along the runs.  Because I mean really, who doesn't like to jam out?!
6)  It will be a good stress reliever, and I'll get to spend a lot of time outside.
7) It will strengthen my relationship with God, because only through Him am I going to be able to do this.  I'm sure there will be lots of prayers along the way!
8) I am going to run it in honor of someone (I'll share that story later).
9) I'll get to buy sweet new running shoes.
10) It's something I've never done before, and I think it'd be quite an accomplishment!

I talked to Dee that afternoon (she was on the soccer team in college, and has now gotten into some running), and asked her what she thought about me doing this.  She said that I could totally do it, and that it'd be worth it!  Her next comment? "You need to sign up today before you talk yourself out of it!!!"

So that's exactly what I did.  I think I might be crazy.

There's no turning back now!