How I got hooked on running

I have been reading a lot of blogs and got the itch to start my own. Whenever I talk about running with people and participating in races, the story that often comes up is the story of my first half-marathon. It only seems fitting to discuss the story of how I got hooked on running for my first post. It all started around this time of year almost exactly three years ago. My friend Nicole texted me one day saying that she wanted to do something big for our twenty-fifth birthday's. She discussed the idea of signing up for the Chicago Half-Marathon and I just groaned. Running 13.1 miles (and paying to do so) always sounded like a crazy idea to me. Eventually, I got another text from Nicole saying she had signed up. She eventually convinced me to do it and said I would have plenty of time to train for the race in September. Eventually I signed up for the race and decided that I actually needed to train so I could actually complete the race. Nicole suggested I use Hal Higdon's training schedule as a starting point for my training. It seemed very intimidating at first because I am not sure I every ran more than five miles in my life before that point. It also important to note that I had been pretty out of shape in 2010 so I set small goals like running three blocks consecutively without stopping. It may sound like those goals are minor but when you do not have a starting point as a runner, I believe it helped me greatly. I followed the training schedule to point. I did all the of the running but I did not really any strength or cross training (If I knew what I know about running now, my running would have gotten off to a better start). Slowly but surely my running got better and I could not believe that I actually started to like it. It also helped that I started to lose a decent amount of weight and looked and felt better. Lets face forward to my first ever race day. It still seemed crazy that my friends and I were about to complete this ridiculous race. Who gets up at 5:30 a.m. to run 13.1 miles for fun? The race started out really well but I got a little defeated when I got to mile four or so of the race and could see people on the other side of the Lake Shore Drive heading towards the finish. My legs wanted to give out on me by mile seven but they did a great job of staying in the game. The worst part of the race came at mile 11 when we hit a hill at 47th street and I got go so annoyed! Where did this silly hill come from?! Eventually I finished and I felt really good about my time. Now that I had just finished my first race ever, I wondered how in the world did people run marathons! The idea seemed pretty crazy to me at the time.

Nicole and I after the race 

Since my first race, I have completed two other halves, a 10K, an 8k and even a marathon! Thank you to Nicole for making me a runner and also unintentionally making me a healthier person.