Running

      So, as most, if not all of you, know, I ran all through high school. Running has always been an enjoyment for me, though I have not always been able to get myself out that door. Especially after going to SUU, and working full-time to pay my way, and then pregnancy, and working full time, and school again, and school while taking care of a child, etc. it just kept getting pushed off.
      I wanted to "race" again. I've never been very fast, so "race" is a subjective term. Run in races might be the better way of phrasing that one. However, I wanted to be able to at least run the whole race and I wanted it to be half-marathons or marathons that I was running. So I had these grand plans, that I would start running every day, and I would work slowly up to being able to run 4-5 miles every day, and then I'd start adding in 'long-runs' on Saturdays (long runs are just the increasing time/distance, and are based on what your normal run is) and slowly increase the time/distance of those long runs until I felt I was good enough to be able to run a half-marathon, and then I'd work my way up to a marathon after that. (I'm sure any of you that are mothers are laughing your heads off at my well-laid plans.) OBVIOUSLY those plans didn't fit very well with my daughter.
      Well, this past semester, it came out that my art teacher (FAVORITE!) was also a runner, as well as one of the other girls in my class. So I would sometimes overhear them talking about various races. Yeah, that was a bit of a motivation to try to figure this out. So, I finally realized that running until I was ready, and then signing up for a race obviously wasn't working, so I would sign up for a race and then use that as my motivation. "I've already paid, I really need to be able to do this". So, I found a half-marathon in mid-August, that runs down the Provo River Parkway.

I was planning on signing up for it, so I started "running". For the past 2 months I've been working my way up. I am currently (as of today) running 2 minutes and walking 1 minute for 30 minutes every Tuesday and Thursday, and then 35 minutes on Saturdays. At this point I will stop upping the ratio of running to walking, and start upping the length of the Saturday runs. I am hoping just to survive the "race". I figure its just doing its job of getting me out the door, and then, because I'll be in the habit of running, I can then increase to where I'm actually running the whole 30 minutes, (35 on Saturdays, cause I'll go back to that after the race) and then I'll really start training.
      Unfortunately, when I went to sign up, they didn't have the registration available. So I was worried that I wouldn't be able to run this one, and I'd have to go to Salt Lake, which would have required much more finangling on the day of the race, because I'd have to be there at about 5, which means I'd need to leave here before 4:30, and then Nathaniel wouldn't be able to have the car, etc. Of course, then I found the lump in my breast (talked about in a previous post) and so, while I was running, I was waiting to sign up for a race until I knew what was going on with that.
     SO, yesterday, I went online, and they had the registration available for it! YAY! So I hurried and signed up before I changed my mind. So, now I'm officially registered for the Provo River 1/2-marathon, which will be run on August 13th, and will start at 7 in the morning. I'm way nervous, but also way excited. I will not be anywhere near ready when it comes around, but I will be much closer than I am now, and I'm not planning on even running the whole 13.1 miles. Its a start though. I'm excited.