Girls Who Run in Skirts

Last Spring, I shared with you my love/hate relationship with running, why I run, and what it does for me, and that aside from my family and a handful of friends, it has been a constant in my life for a very long time (see “Run, Run as Fast as You Can“) . It occurred to me recently that I have been running longer than not running, which is amusing because I never set out to become a runner, it just sort of happened. It started off as a huge challenge (my first mile almost killed me), then two miles was about right, now anything less than four seems like a waste of time. I am not a natural runner, and years of pounding the pavement have taken a toll on my knees, ankles, back, and toenails. Most of my friends are not runners and they complain of the same things so maybe it’s just age. Oh dear!

Yesterday, I competed in the third and final leg of the Triple Crown. The Triple Crown is a set of three half marathons, the Carlsbad Half Marathon, the La Jolla Half Marathon, and Americas Finest City Half Marathon, all in the San Diego area, which take place about 3 months apart. Run all three and get an extra medal at the end. Whoo–hooo! I usually only run the Carlbad Half Marathon but this year decided to do all three just for fun, plus I wanted that extra medal:) I average anywhere from 2hrs 15 min to 2hrs 30 min, pretty standard for women runners my age, so the real story is has little to do with running at all. Mostly, it’s a about a girl who likes to run because it keeps her mind and body healthy and makes her feel like she can climb Mt. Whitney some day. It’s a good thing. Tell me about what you like to do to challenge yourself. I’d love to hear about it!

This is me wearing my four medals. It took a lot of effort to get here but it was a lot of fun too so am grateful I did it!

Completing this race meant so much to me that I had my nails manicured the day before plus bought a skirt to run in (an actual running skirt, not something from my closet–that would be a sight!)

Sarah gets dragged to these races with me and she does a good job at pretending she is having a good time although she doesn’t get why people run in the first place and pay money to do it…….out of the mouths of babes!

This is my sister Liz and her boyfriend Greg. Without them, I could not do what I do or at least it would not be as fun! They feed me, give me a place to sleep, offer me wine even though I’m not supposed to have any the night before a race….. they take good care of me. Did I mention Greg has a jacuzzi in his backyard overlooking a golf course? Nice! It’s good to be loved:)

These two guys and some 5,000 others just like them ran the race with me. The guy on the right is Tom, the guy on the left is Ted. (I thought his name was Jerry but Tom straightened me out). Thank you for running with me, Tom:) Ted left us in the dust!

My next race will be the Long Beach Half Marathon in October. See you there!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 and is filed under a day in the life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.