I ran track in high school.  I don’t really know why.  I wasn’t that good at it and running has never been my favorite thing.  I enjoyed the comraderie and I was a sprinter so the running I had to do was in short bursts – much better for a girl who’s brain starts cussing her out once she hits the half mile mark.

I also enjoyed the boys. Mmmm…the boys.   Come to think of it, it may have been the boys that kept me coming back each year for another season.  I enjoyed running as long as I could exercise my flirting skills.

Ahem.

Actually, I started my track career as a high jumper, something that I had at least a little natural talent in, but had to quit when I developed a stress fracture in my back.  But rather than quit altogether, I decided I would just become a runner.  Only I quickly discovered I wasn’t exactly a runner.

I’ve always longed to be able to say I’m a runner, though.  When Lee and I were first married, we met a crazy older couple who told us that running was a great way to strengthen a young marriage.  They were training for their second marathon together and convinced us to train for a half marathon.

So, in our love struck foolishness, we agreed and began running.  And we quickly learned that trying to train for a race together would likely be the demise of our marriage.  We’re both highly competitive, but one of us is naturally a better athlete than the other.

I’ll give you one guess as to which one it is.

My husband is a super freak when it comes to athletics.  He’s all, “I hate to run.  It’s so hard and boring.”  Then he pops out and run 5 miles in 40 minutes while barely breaking a sweat.  And quite frankly, it infuriates me.  The only plus was that since I was stuck running behind him most of the time, I got to stare at his backside while he ran.  Bonus for me…but still annoying.

So Lee dropped out of the training after a couple of weeks and decided he didn’t need or want to run a half marathon.  I, however, stuck with and got up to 8 miles when I hurt my foot, had to take a break and never started up again. 

Fast forward seven years.  I was once again duped by a friend into running a marathon relay.  My friend convinced me that it would be easy.  Four of us would divide a marathon and would accomplish the race that way.  “You can have the last leg,” she said.  “It’s the easiest.”

L to the I to the A to the R!  The final 6.3 miles was all up hill.  I nearly died, folks.  Did you hear me?  I NEARLY DIED!

One week later I found out I was pregnant (surprise!) with Landon.  And when complications with the pregnancy arose, I stopped running…and never started up again.

Fast forward to today.  I have lost all the baby weight from three children.  Go me!  But there’s one problem.  Areas of my body are soft and squishy where once they were much firmer.  Not cool. 

Combine the squishiness with the fact that my husband has decided he is going to run a half marathon in April and is already up to running 3.5 miles after only a couple weeks of training and I’m chomping at the bit to dive back in.

I may hate running, but I’m not one to sit around and let my husband show me up.  Competition – it’s what killed the cat.  You thought it was curiosity, didn’t you? 

So, I started running again this week.  I did a mile on Monday (I was heaving with embarrassing aplomb) and today the goal is to do a mile again – just a little faster.

And so, here I go.  I will be chronicling my adventures in running here in an attempt to spur myself on and to find comic relief in what I believe to be the very un-funny process of running.  This has the potential to go one of two ways – I fall madly in love with running and experience the “runner’s high,” (not likely) or I fall flat on my face (figuratively…and maybe liturally) and learn once and for all that running is not for me.

Because the temps are significantly below freezing right now and the only thing that sounds worse to me than running is frostbite, I will have to do the dreaded exercise on a treadmill for awhile.  Awesome.  Now I get to have an audience as I galump along. 

When it warms up, I will hit the road.  Now if I could just find some cute boys to surround me while I run, that would help…