#ashruns

[anotherdamnrunningblog]

GOALS

Cut a sub-8 mile consistently before the Spring 2015 rugby season.

Complete a sub-25 5K before the end of the school year.

Run the 10K in the Baltimore Running Festival.

Run the Bay Bridge 10K.

Run the DC Nike Women’s Half in 2016.

[anotherdamnrunningblog]

I'm a fat runner.

Here goes nothing. I'm a fat runner. "Runner," if you could call me that...more just like a fat person who runs.

My running journey started out as nothing impressive at all. For fourteen years of my young life (age 4 to age 18), I played softball. I never had to run more than 240 feet at a time...and I could even jog it if I put the ball over the fence.

My freshman year of college, I joined the club rugby team. This was my first major contact sport and some serious running was involved -- 80 minutes, almost nonstop. I was athletic, but not in optimal rugby shape, so I suffered through my first season, but I made it.

Early in summer, I became determined to be in the best shape possible when rugby began again in the fall. I began strength training and did some serious cardio work. It didn't start off as a weightloss journey, but that's what it became.

I downloaded the Nike Running app and became obsessed with watching my mile count shoot up. However, I started from nothing. I couldn't run a tenth of a mile without stopping. My first mile time was 10'28". I worked my way up. I began one of the training programs under the coaching section and was logging as many as 20 miles per week.

By the end of August, I had lost 11 pounds and gained so much muscle. I was content and ready. I finished second on all of our team runs, only behind a former collegiate lacrosse-playing teammate. I was consistently registering an 8 minute mile.

That brings me to now. The season got in the way of my training. Rugby, though at my school, it's only a club sport, takes up a ton of time. School and work and a degree of laziness helped contribute to my cardio-respiratory endurance decreasing. 

I begin off-season training on 12/1. On a run this morning, I chose a treadmill over braving the cold and preformed like shit.

So welcome aboard this crazy train. Today is 11/29 and I'm starting over on my running journey.