The Wonderful, Gross World of Running.

Chica here! It's Saturday evening and I've been wanting to post to the blog for a couple of days now. I've just been too lazy. I've been reading a lot of running blogs lately, especially one called www.half-fast.org. The blogger, who goes by the monicker "Vanilla," has me hooked. I liked a few of his posts so I decided to go all the way back to the beginning of his blog, in 2007! I'm now reading through 2008's posts and loving it. (Don't tell me what happens. I feel like I'm being sneaky by starting at the beginning.) He's real, honest about his struggles, vain (which is hilarious because I can totally relate), makes fun of people and himself, and posts inappropriate, funny shiz almost every day (I especially enjoyed his post about how he peed on his shoes). My kind of blogger!

From what I've read on some of these blogs, and from reading articles in Runner's World Magazine and other material, I am gathering that being a runner is not so glamorous! There are chaffing issues, needing to go pee...or....that other thing...during a run, aches, pains, and a lot of having to overcome our own mental and physical weaknesses. I haven't experienced most of the wonderful and gross things that I've been reading about, but I'm pretty sure that within the next five months I will probably encounter a few.

I have MOST CERTAINLY encountered the mental aspect of running. It seems to be my constant companion. That's why I'm SO thankful I have Bella running alongside me. If she weren't there, it'd just be me and the frantic conversation going on in my head. Once a conversation ends between Bella and I (which RARELY happens, because we are the queens of the rabbit trail), I just try to come up with something else to talk about, and sometimes it's boring stuff, like what I cooked for dinner the night before. But it's okay, because as soon as I start a boring conversation, we spice it up with our rabbit trails! 

Friday was Bella's and my longest run so far. Instead of sticking to the 28 minutes we were scheduled to do, we decided to go for distance instead. We ran 2.5 miles! I'm not going to preface every post about our runs with a lame, "I know it's not that far or that fast, but we're just starting out," because.....come on.....we're just starting out! I'm damn proud of us. I think we are being smart about starting slow and steady. I know that I've started MANY workout programs hard and fast and burned out halfway through. And that's why I know we're going to see this thing all the way through. 

One last tidbit. Bella is now registered for our race in May! So, it's officially official! Yes, it can be just official and not be as official as officially official. You didn't know that? Well, you learn something new every day, right? Below is the text message convo we had when she registered. I know, we're gross. But I think that means we're real runners!

(Yes, I got permission from Bella before posting this. She's not ashamed of her enthusiasm and neither am I!)

And here's the picture of Friday's run summary. Pretty cool how we got faster with each split. Yay us!

 
~ Chica ~