Run for a Change

Stuart and I have set the biggest new year's resolution that we ever have...running a Half-Marathon. That's 13.10938 miles. Or for those of you on the metric system, that's 21.0975 km. (BY THE WAY, did you know that there are only 3 countries in the world that don't use the metric system?? USA, Liberia and Burma...I think we're missing something here). 13.1 miles is farther than I've ever run at one time. Actually it wouldn't be that far off to say I don't think I've ever run that far total. I ran the Bolder-Boulder back in high school (with Stuart...)which was 6 miles, and I ran Race for The Cure with my dad (3.2 miles), and other than that I've probably run about 1.2 miles in the gym on my own. Needless to say, this will be quite the adventure.

I blame our latest host family for this mess. Watching "Biggest Loser" with The Howard family became a tradition that we have yet to let go of. At the end of every season they run the Biggest Loser Marathon, where all of the remaining contestants run 26.2 miles less than 6 months after being morbidly obese. It was the end of last season that we decided, if they can do it, we can too!! Okay, maybe not a marathon, but let's go for a half!! So here we are. The race is 66 days away and we are desperately trying to force our legs & lungs to be supportive.

We started training about two weeks ago. When we signed up for the race we also downloaded a nice training guide that sends us daily email reminders of our scheduled torture. My favorites are the ones that say "Today is a rest day!" The highlight came this past Monday when we had a scheduled 45 minute "easy" run. (ha!) Both Stu and I hit the 4 mile mark! Wooooo!!! We've set up little incentives for ourselves along the way. Running a 5k was our first goal. Check. Once we hit that we bought some running jackets so we can stay warm, comfortable, and dry outside. This kinda breaks our year-long-no-buying-clothes rule, but otherwise we'd be unprepared for the race. Plus, all real runners have the appropriate attire! Next goal: 10k and we'll get some fancy runner's watches. Can't wait for those!

This morning was our first morning run. Killer. But we might as well get used to it because the race (which is on 3/21/10 by the way) starts at 7am...oh boy. So far so good though! Our legs and lungs are graciously cooperating. Both Stu and I have bad knees but I think they are determined to press on too. We are injury free as of now, and that is a great feeling. Stay tuned as the training continues...

Here are some websites in case you're interested:
The Race site: http://inggamarathon.com/
Stuart's Blog: http://stuarta13.blogspot.com/