New Goals

I was feeling pretty impulsive this past Sunday and made it my goal to find a 1/2 Marathon to run before the end of the year. I started my search in Northern California, but there was nowhere that I was interested in running...not as my first 1/2 anyway. My options were Livermore (NO THANK YOU), Petaluma (I'll be out of town for that one), and Lake Tahoe (beautiful, but I think adding altitude to my first 1/2 would be a bit much). I was getting discouraged, but still determined to find a run before 2012. Searching...searching...searching...Las Vegas Rock N' Roll 1/2 Marathon on Dec 4, 2011!!! I couldn't think of a better race for my first 1/2. I looked into the details of the run and I got even more excited. The race starts at 5:30pm and the course runs along Las Vegas Blvd. From Mandalay Bay down to the Golden Nugget and back. This means I will be running under the lights on the strip! Oh, and live music every mile...talk about some motivation.

I took about 30 minutes to decide if this was something I was ready to commit to and before I knew it, I was paying for my registration! It took me even less time to book flights, which I'm a little less excited about...Spirit Airlines? Really?

I have wanted to run a Marathon for years, but have always been too scared to commit to it. A couple of months ago, a friend of mine was going through a difficult time in her life and I told her I would run a Marathon with her in October...well, we never signed up and we both ended up slacking off on the training and wouldn't you know it, October is just around the corner. I started thinking about how to set myself up to succeed rather than to fail. This is when I decided that it would be more beneficial for me to start out running a 1/2 Marathon before I double that mileage. With that, I believe I've set myself up for a physical and mental challenge that will make me stronger. These next 3 months are going to be difficult with training, but I'm ready for it. I started this week and have slowly been getting myself back in shape (I haven't ran since I left Boston...2 months ago!). I've done incline walking intervals, light jogs, and a spin class this morning. So far, so good. I'm taking this week to get my body used to moving again and next week I start racking up the mileage. I will be posting as often as I can to document my training process.

Stay tuned...