Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Why I run

A lot of people have been asking me why I run and when did it all start. I guess you could say I always wanted to run, I was just never good at it so I started cycling, because to be honest, at my previous weight the thought of running was a kin to torture, while cycling was waaay easier. So anyways, after participating in 4 century rides and one 2 day 140 mile ride across the crazy hills of CT (crying my way through hill after hill) I decided that I hated cycling and I needed something new...enter running.

My cycling friend Bridgette and I started out with a few 5k's that were really terrible. I absolutely loved the before and after, the comraderie among racers, seeing people cross the finish (although I was one of the last people in so I often only got to see a few people cross). But the running..oy, I HATED it. I was sweaty and could hardly breathe, it was beyond torture. Still, I knew that I wanted to love running, I just needed to figure out how...and that took a while

After cursing running and some time off I decided to start up again and thought that participating with TNT would be a good idea....and it was until I got laid off and really needed to place my fundraising energy elsewhere (i.e. I needed to network and find me a job!). So to make a long story short I continued to run after breaking up with TNT, joined my running club, made a few runs, tore my acl (see older posts for details) lost a bunch of weight as a result of tearing my acl (note - a torn acl will not make you loose weight, but an awakening from not being able to excercise will...enter the no sugar, flour and wheat part of my life)and now I can say I really love running.

That's the really long version, but the short of it is that once I got healthy (i.e. shed about 20 lbs), running became really easy (well, not that easy) and I found myself able to enjoy the whole act of running. It's been great motivation to see my times improve and my endurance continue to get better. I have also met a bunch of awesome people and get to write this blog, which is so fun for me, even though I think my posts are pretty boring! I know there are a ton more reasons why I run, which I will post later and I'm sure will continue to post as this running journey of mine continues.

1 comment:

Jenn said...

Hello from a fellow VRC member! Great to hear about how you started running; I always love those stories.