I started officially training for my 1/2 marathon I'll be running in Nashville, TN on April 30th, 2011. I have ran a few times before this week, but I wanted to get serious about my training. On Monday, 2/7/11 I ran 4.0 miles! (Per my training schedule I was only required to run 3.0 miles, but I felt so good, I kept going!). I felt pretty good and started understanding how challenging running is. The next day on Tuesday, 2/8/11, I ran 2.0 miles. The first mile, I walked a lot of it and it took me 15:00 minutes and I thought that was way too slow. So I turned around at my half way point, looked up to the sky and said "This is for you God." and I ended up running the last mile without stopping at all! I couldn't believe it! I kept telling myself all the reasons to NOT stop on this mile. I kept telling myself I HAVE to do this, TRY Nancy...you never know what you can do until you really try! So as I reached the end of my driveway, I immediately stopped and just regrouped for a moment. I was so thankful and felt like I could do anything if I kept this up.
I ran again on Thursday, 2/10/11, and ran for 3.0 miles. I ended up running the last mile again non-stop! Along the way, I kept praying for strength from God to finish this last mile. And out of no where, I just felt myself push my body forward more and started running faster. It was amazing. I felt very good about my run and know I can do this! My body, my mind, everything felt 100% better once I finished my run! It was exhilerating to get out there in the beautiful surroundings and run. I live in the country, and am surrounded by tall pine trees...and lots of neighborhood dogs! Ha. I really think all of my neighbors have at least one dog.
There is one hill in particular that is very challenging to me. Currently, I can only run about 1/2 way up the hill. My goal is to be able to run completley up this hill within 2 weeks! We shall see.
This is by far the hardest thing I've tried. It pushes you in so many ways. I'm going to do my "long run" today of 4.0 miles. Looking forward to it!
