Last night I started to list all the runs I’ve done. There are some I can’t find or don’t remember but it’s a good start. (Note this image is from Depositphotos.com, sadly it’s not us!)

Why? Well, I’m starting to spend a decent amount of time running, my body is getting back to a good place (can you feel the happy?) but I didn’t have a good handle on where I am compared to where I’ve been.

Well, if I can’t see where I’ve been, how on earth do I improve??? Accidentally? Well, I’m tracking my training now, which will help. But…

But, I have a huge goal to reach.
Not unreasonable, just a BHAG (big harry audacious goal)!
Need all the help I can muster to get there!

I’ve always been in pretty decent shape… thanks for the genes mom & dad.

It was fun looking back last night. You won’t find any world records here… just a regular person trying to stay fit and have fun. Putting the list together was just having it all in one place. Hopefully for motivation? We’ll see. But it was fun thinking back… 

Ran my first 5K in 1992. Such a newbie, young and very naive. The idea that I might need to actually train for a 5K seemed silly to me. While running the distance a couple times before the run, remember thinking I was probably overly optimistic trying to do this. Yea, right. Oh well… finished… ran the complete distance. I think I died after crossing the finish. 🙂 No idea what my time was but it was not anything to write home about. 

Here’s the thing… I.did.it
With a cool crew of people cheering. I was so lucky! Everyone has always loved coming together for a goal. I’m so glad I did it. Our youngest will never remember being there, but I remember him being in his stroller just before the finish. 

But I was never a runner. I could have been, people asked. High school & college were filled with many different things. I’m sad to say that formal running wasn’t one of them.

Started running again a number of years later, with a good friend. It started with walking our dogs and grew to running a couple miles a couple days a week. Life was busy and it was enough. That time was mostly about raising our boys, working, being married, etc.. That totally crazy time where (at least for me) it felt like my head was spinning every single day.

In 2008, I ran with another friend for a while. We did a couple runs and it was good. I love running with people. Winter, vacations and injuries set in and I got busy with other things. Why is it so hard to keep with it?

And I got out of shape and a little fat…

So in 2012 I got back to running. It was a big year, our oldest was graduating from undergrad. I was working on returning to the techie world. Needed the stress relief and time to clear my head (& to lose a few pounds). After graduation and before the first job started, we started doing 5Ks as a family activity and that made it easy to keep running. We had a blast running. It was a gift to run as a family. Honestly at that point, any family time is gold, right?

The hard part is staying with it. It’s so easy to do something else or to pay a little more attention to that ache or tweak. Then get busy with some other priority and… well, you know how it goes.

Have stopped for periods due to injury or busy, but for most of the past two years, I’ve been running. And to make it easier, I try to keep Porter running. He’s great (another post for another day). We don’t run together, but we build time into our week to run. We don’t really compete for times or distances (because that’s just silly his 5K time last Sat was 24:26 to my 28:45), but we’re both pretty competitive people and compete mostly for making the time and actually doing it. Does that make sense? 

I’ll turn 50 in November and that got me thinking about my bucket list. Eldest is running halfs and marathons. He makes it look so easy. I know it’s not, but he does make it look easier than I ever thought it could be. I always had visions of the casualties at the finish.

And I started wanting more. It’s a big deal going from a 5K to 13.1miles, to me. A goal, a plan and support, bring it on.

Stay tuned to see how I tame this BHAG!