My First Race

I ran a 5K today. My first race ever.

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At this beautiful place, on a beautiful autumn morning. It was awesome to see the moon setting and the sun rising as we ran.

My History of Running
In elementary school I looked forward to junior high track and always thought I'd be a runner, just like my mom and my brothers. But it turned out my dance practices were the same time as track. And later when they weren't, I wasn't really interested any longer.

I slowly got into running my first summer living in Logan. I loved running around campus, through the cemetery, with the canyon nearby and the huge trees lining most streets. Logan is beautiful! It was a perfect way to de-stress and focus on what I really wanted to do with my life.

Winborg's painting of sledding on Old Main Hill.

At that time, I happened to live at the very bottom of a very large hill in Logan--Old Main Hill. Combined with climbing that hill multiple times a day, running eventually wore too much on my knees. I kind of put running on the back-burner and took a class to learn how to swim--really swim--for exercise and not just for play. I liked it so much that swimming became my favorite way to exercise.

And then I moved away from a pool, to a neat little town that only had a pool open in the summer time. I was bummed. I tried running once or twice, but my knees still protested. I referred to work-out videos, biking, and walking, and enjoyed all I could of summer lap-swim times.

Then Winston came along and yoga became my favorite form of exercise and stress-relief. I lost a few pounds, too, and decided I'd try running again. It was great for the first 2 weeks of running, until...you guessed it...my knees gave out. But this was a different kind of pain--and NOT a better pain. I guess I had figured that my knee pain was because of my weight, and since I lost some, I figured I'd be ready run.

My sports-medicine-doctor brother gave me exercises to do that I (kind of) did, but I basically just decided against running. Until about 12 weeks ago.

Back to the Present
At the beginning of August, I got an email from the state office of a program I supervise. They were going to include a 5K run/walk in our annual training meeting. Cool, I thought. My colleagues and I often giggle and/or roll eyes about the contradiction of the food we eat during conferences and how sedentary we are--even though we are learning about nutrition and physical activity. I knew I should not walk, but run this.

Training schedule I used (I actually started at week 3, and that worked well for me).

The training schedule was very doable (and a decent set of tunes definitely helped!).  Easing into it greatly helped my knees.  I also read some helpful tips in the Healing For Life magazine. After reading about running mechanics, I thought, "Well, yeah. Duh. Why did I never really think of that?" I did my best to follow those and the tips from my Dr. Brother. And you know what--they haven't hurt at all (well, maybe once, but I just made sure to stretch some more and took a little ibuprofen to calm them down). Winston often protested to having to sit in a stroller through it all, but ending at a park made him happy.

So, today I took part in a very relaxed, go-as-you-will 5K run/walk. I ran the entire time, and finished 3 miles (not quite a full 5K) in 28:26.

Not bad for a very first race and only starting to run 10 weeks ago. If I can convince Winston to wear mittens and a jacket (you should see our battles over this!), maybe there will be more running this season. Otherwise, it might just have to wait until Spring.