It’s been over a month and I’ve stuck with running! For my entire life, I have thought that “long distance” running was not for me. Hurdles were my life (and still are because I’ll be coaching hurdles again this spring) and I was a fast sprinter. Running over 400 meters never appealed to me. Also, every other workout I’ve done, I usually would lose interest after about a few weeks. But then my friend, Lia, started running and she recruited me to run with her. I signed up for my first race after about a week of being on board with this running thing. I was only able to run a few times to “practice” before the race. In the last ten years, I think I’ve run two 5Ks (3.12 miles) on whims and I was so slow because I just thought you could bust out a great time without practicing. I know, I was just being naive.

Anyway, the first race wasn’t that bad and I was totally surprised by my time (33:13) For only running a few times and considering the fact that the third mile felt like forever, I was so happy! It might not seem like the best time, but this was huge personal achievement for me! Then we signed up for another race the following weekend to support a church, but it was an unofficial race and time. I had to guess what my time and mileage was on an app. Although I didn’t get official times, it was for a good cause and it felt great to keep racing. On Sunday, I ran at my alma mater high school’s memorial 5K race in honor of a former student/track athlete who was murdered on her off campus apartment in college. Every year they have a race to honor her and to give scholarships. I thought it would be fitting to go run this race because my racing career started in high school and it’s important to keep her spirit and memory alive even though I never knew her. I’m still waiting on the official times, but my app recorded me at 31:55. It was such a cold and windy morning and I really had to push myself to finish and not think about how hard and muddy the race was. I’m glad that I finished with a small personal record!

Entering in these races gave me the confidence that I needed to stick with a goal and to see how fun running really is. I’m glad that I have gotten over my fear of running more than a quarter mile. I’m still going to run on my own, but I’m going to wait a bit to enter in another race only because it’s really hard to run in harsh weather conditions. I’m not at that level just yet, but hopefully I’ll get to a point where the weather won’t affect my running mood. I think races are a great way to keep me accountable and to look forward to something. Plus, I told myself that if I keep running, I can keep buying cute running clothes! That’s my kind of motivation 😉

Adidas: Sweatshirt – Leggings – Shoes // Ray-Ban: Sunglasses

Photography: Samantha Kramer