In June 2009 I ran my first half-marathon. We did the first annual Seattle Rock and Roll Half Marathon. There was a band every mile and there were so many people that you really had to be careful and watch where you were stepping so you wouldn't trip over somebody else's feet. It is so inspiring to see thousands of people filling the street for as far as you can see... all doing something healthy and loving it. I can't believe I ran 13.1 miles!!! This is a big accomplishment for me, because I have never been able to run that far before. As a matter of fact, I have not always enjoyed running. When I was younger I was definitely a sprinter, not a distance runner. I liked going super-fast when we did line sprints at basketball and volleyball practices, but the mile run used to seem kind of long to me. I started jogging for exercise when I was in college, and continued to do so occasionally, but still I never went very far. I have always much preferred going to step-aerobics class for my cardio exercise. Then a few years ago, when my kids were on soccer teams and I had to spend my time driving them back and forth instead of going to the gym, I started jogging with a few of my friends who also had daughters on the team. We would jog while the kids practiced. This killed two birds with one stone- we got our exercise and we got to hang out with our friends- both things that are hard to do when you are a busy mom!! We kept increasing our distance over time and decided this year we should challenge ourselves to run a half marathon to give ourselves focus and a goal to reach for. I definitely could not have done this without my friends. When I am jogging with them I find it fun to talk and hang out together, but when I am by myself I keep checking my watch to see how long I've been going! I have a much harder time motivating myself to keep going. I guess it's all about finding something you enjoy doing and finding a way to get the most out of it as possible. It was definitely a challenge for us to coordinate activities and get everybody in our families taken care of so that we could get together to run. Thank goodness we all have great, helpful husbands that supported our goal! Sometimes we had to run late at night, sometimes very early in the morning, and sometimes for just a half hour if that is all the time we had, but once in a while we got to go for a couple of hours! When it was getting close to the time to do our half-marathon we jogged all the way from Jefferson school to Skagit Valley Gardens and back! That was about 10 miles. I really have a lot of respect for people who can run full marathons- I don't think I'll be doing 26 miles any time soon, but I sure am happy that I did 13.
