Garden of the Gods

For those of you that know anything about my time in Colorado, you know that Garden of Gods is one of my absolutely favorite places to go. It's the first place I went hiking when I moved out here and my favorite place to go on a nice day. I'm still amazed by how beautiful the rock formations are and I love being able to hike/walk around until I find a perfect spot and to sit and read. I just love it!

I was NOT looking forward to my sacred happy place this morning for our group run and "hill intervals". I love that place, I didn't want to taint it with the memories of being in pain running up hills multiple times (remember how much I hate hills from my previous posts!) It was even more daunting to be have the alarm go off at 5:30am after being out late at the Denver Nuggets game the night before. But, I started the morning with a positive attitude and it was a pretty great day. Don't get me wrong, I still HATE hills - I hate everything about them but running in a beautiful place on a sunny morning almost takes the pain out of them. And seriously, having 7 1/2 total miles under my belt before 10am on a Saturday was a pretty great feeling!

Thought I would share a picture of the beautiful scenery from my run ...

Daily miles: 7.5
Total miles: 16

Discoveries ...

I ran on my own today for the first time. One of the hardest parts of marathon training is going to be motivating myself to train on my own and not just during the team sessions on Tuesday and Saturday. It was a beautiful day out and my training schedule said I should have run 2 miles today, so run 2 miles it was. I set out after work on the only 2 mile route I knew (it's exactly 1.1 miles each way to my friend's apartment). Which reminds me, I'm really going to have to come up with some better routes because one of these days, he's going to see me running and well, we just don't want that to happen ... and it's certainly going to get boring!

During my first run outside on my own, I came up with a few running discoveries...

• NEVER start the run off with a hill. I swear that hill outside my apartment doesn't look that bad when I drive on it almost daily. It sucks to run up ... especially in the beginning of the run. I do have to keep reminding myself that I live in Colorado and that this is a very hilly state but I'm going to have to work on finding some more flat roads.
• Colorado is also a very windy state. The breeze feels great at your back, sucks pretty bad when it's blowing at you. Makes it three times as hard to run, and breathe.
• The worst is running up the hill with the wind blowing in your face... I pretty much wanted to quit at that point... I didn't, but I sure wanted to.
• I need to invest in a head band. Getting bangs cut before starting marathon training was probably not the smartest idea, regardless of how cute they may be.
• While those waist bands with the water bottles in them may look ridiculous, I'm so buying one next time I'm at the store. It's impossible to run 2 miles in the sun without any water, and probably not good for me either.
• My other purchase at the store, iPod headphones that somehow hang around my ears... ear buds DO NOT stay in your ear while running. Also very annoying to keep fixing.
• Blowing snot rockets, while extremely disgusting, are completely acceptable and necessary while running.
• That same terrible hill at the start of the run was spectacular to run down at the end of the run :) See, the whole run wasn't that bad!

I realized today that I'm a runner now. I'm one of those people that I always see jogging on the side of the road (normally while I'm speeding by them in my car). I've always been jealous of those people, jealous that I couldn't do what they did. But I can, and I am. I'm a runner and I'm pretty darn excited about it :)

Daily miles: 2.5
Total miles: 8.5

Sore

I'm sure this is obvious to most people, but the day after doing a total of 4 1/2 miles during the first week of running is not a good day on the body. My leg muscles are wondering what's going on and they're pretty sore/exhausted from not being used in forever. Oww. Can't wait to run tomorrow so this pain goes away ...

Time to get started .. for real!

Wow, where did the time go? Had it really been a whole month since I started this thing? It had been and I hadn't run a single step! And to make the whole thing even better, I hurt my big toe ... and the rest of my foot, not just my big toe. Yes, this is your chance to laugh and shake your head a bit at me and wonder what I'm doing. Don't worry I had done the same. But it's official, the Athletic Trainer of the Year Award goes to Lexie at the Air Force Academy. My wonderful friend is in the process of fixing it for me and she must be doing something right because I made it to track practice tonight and ran. I didn't get to do too much at last week's practice because of my foot but I was able to go full force tonight and it felt great. 4 1/2 miles later, I had completed my first track practice!! :)

The best part to come out of the night was that I met someone that was in the same boat I was ... someone that was running for the first time and had never been much of a runner and was still in the "what am I doing" phase! And she's even in my running group and should be doing the same time splits I am .. a true God send! We talked about how we're in the same situation and about how we're going to be a great support for each other over the next few months as we go through the same struggles and same exciting moments. We're even going to go on runs together - who ever thought I would be the person that would have a friend to go on runs with?! Ha! I just wish I could convince her to run the Denver Marathon instead of the Nike Women's Marathon! Fat chance with that one.

I must say, I'm feeling really motivated after today's track workout!

Oh, and my wonderful fundraising letters and e-mails are going out this week ... please support me as much as you can. The sooner I reach my financial goal, the sooner I can forget about fundraising and focus on running!!

Daily miles: 4.5
Total miles: 6