No Boundaries

I meant to start this blog to chronicle my experience as a runner much sooner than now. Better late than never, right? ;)

Lyn and RJ @ Tough Mudder

For a variety of reasons, I decided to start running this year. I think my real inspiration have been my siblings. RJ has done the Chicago Marathon, Tough Mudder, UrbanAthlon (all three in three weekends in a row!). Lyn did Tough Mudder with RJ and has recently completed her first half marathon. Jon is getting ready to do the Spartan Race. Joe has done numerous marathons.

I enrolled in a running program through Fleet Feet called No Boundaries that started in March. It's a 12-week program and this week marks the completion of the program with our goal race being the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure on Saturday.

I was one of those people who HATED to run. So, it was to my surprise that I actually have enjoyed it. I think it helped that this was a reasonable and realistic training program, and the people who surround you (whether a coach/mentor or fellow runner) are so supportive and generally awesome. I really appreciated that the intent of the program was to run, but we didn't take ourselves so seriously that we couldn't have fun!

I have surprised myself that I was able to keep up with the program. I honestly wasn't sure if I'd be able to. It sounded damn near impossible. Really, I'm expected to be able to run for 3 minutes, walk 2 minutes for 55 minutes? I'm technically two weeks off from the training schedule because I had bronchitis and had to take a little time off to recuperate. But still! I've started running the aforementioned interval and I'll continue to work on it for the next couple of weeks. Not in time for the goal race, but that's okay.

Week 11

Week 10

Week 9

I was doing planks and Baby Girl had to come and help me out.