Running for My Life....

Never did I imagine in my life that I would be running a mile let alone a half marathon!!!!! I always hated running! In grade school, we would have Track & Field days. We would all load up on the bus in our school tshirts and take off to the track to compete against the other area schools. I mainly did it to get out of class, like many others I am sure. ;) I mostly did the 4x2 relay and I would "practice" running down my road near my parents house. I would do the track pose like the olympic runners do when they are about to hear the gun go off. That was until a car was coming down the road scaring me to death and I took off running to the house. Needless to say that was my last track & field day.

Then in March of this year, I get a text from my friend Jessica telling me "we are doing the Army Ten Miler (ATM) this year, so get to training." So I began to train for a race that was months away. But the more I trained the more I started to love it. Every day I would lace up my sneakers and go for a run. My first race was just a 1 mile "fun" run. I finished it in 12:08. I was pretty proud of myself considering it usually took me longer to do a mile.

Then I decided to enter in my first 5k!!! At last minute, I almost stayed home but then said to myself Wounded Warriors don't take off so I can't. This was a Fourth of July race and I already had a shirt made up with all the Wounded Warrior names listed on the back! The ones I was running for!!

 

I ended up finishing in 39:17! After running this race, the bug had really bitten. I was searching for more races to enter, I wanted to beat my time!!!!

 

With each week, I would add another mile and continue to run. Then I got the bright idea to enter in my first half marathon!!!! Its better to be half crazy right?! In the meantime, I entered in two more 5k races! Finishing in 39:06 and 38:40. I even placed 4th in my age group on the last race!! Woot Woot!!!

 

Then came September 22 and my first Half Marathon race!!! I started out going pretty good. I even thought I would make the time my husband said I should finish. He told me earlier to finish in 2:45 or I better be making some friends during the race because he would be gone. ;) I would have most likely made that time, until I hit mile 8 and the back of my legs began to kill me. It hurt so bad. I later found out it was lactic acid buildup. But I pushed on and ended up finishing in 3:20!! I was very pleased considering it was my first half. However, by the time we made it back home to Morrison from Nashville, I could barely walk up the steps.

 

 

Since I didn't want to end up with pain like that again, I invested in some of the compression sleeves and thought I would try out KT Tape Pro as well. Man, those sleeves are like heaven!!!! You may look like a dork, but its well worth it!!

 

 

Since having these sleeves, I have had no issue with the lactic acid buildup. Which is what I wanted since the Army Ten Miler was coming up soon. I sure didn't want to cross the finish line by crawling.