Milestone!

I've never been an athlete. Never played a sport in school in my life. I've never claimed to be a good runner. I actually hated running until I was forced to run outside last year thanks to my trainer. I realized that I loved the fresh air, the trees and the blue skies and the moms walking their babies in strollers and the pet owners walking their dogs.

I think I used to run a 12-minute mile on the treadmill at the gym. Mind you, running on a treadmill is WAY easier than running on a road or trail. You only have your own body serving as momentum! As of last year I hadn't run further than 2 miles without having to stop to catch my breath.

For those of you who follow my blog you might remember that I ran my first 5K last November. It was a goal I had set for myself to keep myself motivated to continue improving on my runs.
It was such an exhilarating experience being out with other runners of all ages and abilities. I ran the 5K (3.1 miles) in 32 minutes. Since that run I decided that my next goal would be to run a 10K.

So the race is still another 4 months away (I'm going to do the same run in SF - "Run Wild for a Child" which benefits the SF Firefighters Toy Program but I've been focusing on running on a more regular basis.

Today I ran my first 5-mile run!



Granted, I'm not the fastest runner in the world but I've managed to cut 2 minutes off of my mile since I started running. It's a start and now I can start to feel a bit more confident about being able to finish a 10K.

A special thanks to Donna Downey for giving me the low-down on the Nike + i-Pod sensor so I can keep track of all of my runs!