I'm new to this blog. I havent't run today yet but I just wanted to tell my story about how I started running and where I am today.
I did not run long distance in high school. I was not serious about it at all. My interest was peaked in college when a friend of mine was talking about running and I acted like it was no big deal. I remember saying, "Running is easy- you just run until you want to stop." He challanged me to run 10 miles with him and I asked if that was as far as he wanted to go. He knew I wouldn't be able to do it but wanted to teach me a lesson. At 5 miles I was hurting pretty bad. I got to about 8 miles and my legs shut down. I had never experienced anything like it. We both worked for UPS at the time and I was a load trainer. I had to call in sick for the next two nights because I could hardly move. Every muscle in my body was sore. That's when I gained a healthy respect for long distance running and I made it my goal to one day finish 8 miles and be able to walk away from it feeling fine- not sore. I did that and decided that that wasn't enough. About 3 and a half years ago I decided to run a marathon- I had never trined or run in a race before. I looked online and got a training scheldule and did it. I trained by myself and ran it in 4:36. I've run the country music marathon the next two years basically going about it the same way with around the same results. Somewhere in the journey I thought that I would love to make it my goal to run a marathon in a qualifying time for Boston but at this pace I can't see it happening before I'm 75. I thought I would try to network a bit and get some training tips that could help me start to improve my time and get rid of the 22 mile cramps under my knees that compleetley destroy my time in every marathon I've run in.
I average about 9 min miles when I'm running 15 or more miles. Shorter distances I can maintain around 8:00 min mile (give or take). I know I need to get to 7:30 min miles for the durration to qualify- just not sure how to get there.
Well- thanks for reading and I'll look forward to any help. | 