This summer I visited my sisters and parents all by myself for 10 days. We took walks, went running or swimming daily. One of my sisters has run a couple half marathons and I didn't think I had what it takes to do that! I've always enjoyed sprinting (I'm a sugar addict no doubt) but I've never thought it possible for me to run anything beyond a 200 meter dash! My knees often hurt me so my mom took me to an awesome running store where I walked across a pad which showed what kind of shoes I need. Since then I've not had any knee problems! Miracle! Right before I went home (July 3) I ran a 5k fun run with my sister and some friends. It was so much fun I hoped to keep it up when I returned home.
And so the running Experiment begins:
So the middle of July, after the swim across the lake of zurich my friends decided to start training for a half marathon....hmmmmm.....I wasn't sure I could commit to it. They all signed up but I didn't. I thought I'dsee how the training goes...my poor knees. So Amy and I started training. We needed to get ourselves up to at least 10 miles. Jenni took me out on a 7 mile run and I survived. That was the longest I had ever gone. I went home and slept 3 hours afterwards. Amy and I would get together weekly for our long run. After we hit 10 miles we felt very proud...it was raining buckets during the run as well. After the 10 I started training weekly with Jenni. She took me on a 14 mile run right before the half marathon. I signed up for the race and Jenni and I ran the Greifenseelauf halfmarathon in September using the run/walk method. I really loved the concept of as long as you do the mileage it doesn't matter how you get there. That made sense to me and it was something I could start with. The race was fine but my legs felt heavy and it was late in the day. I'm determined to redo that run to have a more positive run. Since I was already up to 14 miles I felt like going longer, farther. Jen and I decided to sign up for a marathon at the end of October in Lausanne and we started TRAINING! It was so much fun, addictive, empowering, time consuming, and weight reducing. My dog Lexy joined me up until 16 miles and I'm sure she could have gone farther but I didn't want to hurt her. We trained up until 20 miles and then ran the race on halloween. The weather was perfect, the views were spectaular and Jen and I had a great run. I loved it and I'll totally do another one...next year :).
Here is beautiful Lake Geneve at Lausanne, Switzerland where the marathon was held.
All the grape vines in the distance
Jen and I after the marathon!
