Way back in high school during my freshman and sophomore years I ran on the cross country team. It started out that way sort of by default, I was cut from the volleyball team. And because we were living in Europe I had very limited transportation (aside from parental taxi services) and I couldn't have job. So there was no way I was going to get on the bus everyday and go home at 3. So I joined the only team that I wouldn't have to try out for--Cross Country.
I had never really run long distance before then. It was hard and I didn't always like practice, but I made some good friends--Ann and Sabrina. We had fun together and I successfully ran for 2 years. My first 5K took me almst 40 minutes if not more and my final 5k was under 28 minutes, not bad for someone who had never run much before.
Sadly thought when we moved back to the states the High School I was enrolled in didn't really have a cross country team and the women's volleyball coach, who was also technically the women's xcountry coach wasn't willing to coach just one person. So I got a job at Chick-fil-A intstead. And my running career ended.
At various times in life I've tried to restart my running career and frankly because I learned to run on a team I've never really enjoyed running solo. But with my recent push to earn that Vera Bradley purse (aka continue on my weight loss journey) I've returned to exercise. For about 3 weeks now I've been doing the elipical machine, much like running but without the impact. Today after 20 minutes of that I gave the treadmill a go. I jogged for about 10 minutes and did running intervals for 8 minutes. Running is hard work.
So here's the rest of the story. When I turned 25 I made a list of things I wanted to do by the time I was 30. Can't remember what they all were, I do however remember 2 of them:
1. Visit Alison & Nico in France
2. Run a marathon, who knows maybe this is the beginning of my training.
I'll keep you posted.
Posted by Stina at September 7, 2006 9:26 AM