plod plod pitter patter

I have been kinda sorta doing some running.

Way back at the beginning of the year – sometime in February, I think – my sister-in-law Chandelle called with a novel idea. She had a friend who was going to fly out to Long Island in October to run a half marathon. Should we try to do it?

It sounded like a good idea at the time. And it wasn’t way until October, which was like forever away.

Forever is going to be upon us very shortly. Yikes!

Experienced runners recommended that we get a race in before the big day, so I signed up for a fun-looking 5k on the beach in Queens, NY. I was psyched for it. Super excited. And then Hurricane Irene hit, and the run was cancelled.

So on Monday, Labor Day, I tried again.

Now, with less than four weeks to go, I am kinda sorta thinking this wasn’t such a great idea!!

I have been following my training regime for the most part, so I’m not quite as out of shape as I was back in February. But my workouts have involved traversing a certain distance more than vigorously running that distance. I’m still extremely sluggish, most likely because getting my workouts in requires me to sacrifice on sleep. And I possibly haven’t entirely given up non-healthy habits involving such things as sugar, caffeine, and carbs. So I certainly haven’t transformed into the svelte athlete I had imagined I’d be by this point.

Nevertheless, I am persevering, And guess what?

On Monday I ran my first ever race!!!

There were quite a few people there, and I was pretty nervous – but once the race started I felt great. We ran through pretty countryside and it was very peaceful plodding along the country roads. It was actually raining when the race started, so we all got soaked, but it soon cleared up. And my time was better than I thought it’d be!

There were also races for the kiddos. Elliot was so excited to run! I’ve been talking it up for weeks. Unfortunately, we were slightly late (I’m not going to point any fingers at anyone, like my husband), and Elliot had missed the 5 and under race, so he ran with the 5-8s. He was kind of devastated that he didn’t get first place. But we tried to explain that he really did great, beating a lot of kids who were even older than he is, so I think he was psyched in the end.

If my plodding along can in any way encourage my kids to get into running and being healthy, then even if I’m not Miss Svelte Runner of the World, I’ll be one happy lady.