and so it begins.....

A friend and I signed up for the marathon last night after drinking a couple glasses of wine.  In the harsh light of day, I have to admit I'm questioning the wisdom of that move.  We had already bailed on the 2010 TC Marathon due to a broken toe (hers) and some life events causing serious training interruptions (mine).  The fact that we bailed didn't stop us from going out for a celebratory dinner.  She's already done 8 marathons; the TC was to be my first.  We decided we still want to do a marathon together and being Minnesota girls, Grandma's seemed like the logical choice.  Plus, it's all downhill right?  I mean, it's point to point/North to South all along Lake Superior.  How bad can it be? Life remains crazy right now, but who knows when that's going to change.  So what the hell, I'll give it another shot!

I've been running off and on for three years.  For some reason, I wanted to start running and found the Couch to 5K  program online in May 2007.  I'm not kidding when I say it was REALLY hard for me to run 60 seconds in a row when I first began and I was terrified when the program called for me to run 10 minutes in a row.  I ran my first 5K August 18, 2007 and when I finished I truly felt like I could do anything!  I've since run in a few 5K and 10K races, and I've even done a 10 mile and a half marathon this year.  I'm slow and not the most graceful runner but I always manage to finish my races in an upright position.

I'm thinking I'll need some external pressure to keep me going when the long runs get super long so I decided to:
A. Run for a charity - my choice is the American Cancer Society (link to my donation page coming soon!).  I figure anyone going through cancer has it lots tougher than anything I'll encounter in training - hopefully that will keep my whining to a minimum but no promises; AND
B. Go public so I'm more likely to stick to some type of training regimen and less likely to stay up late and play on Fridays thereby causing me to skip those early Saturday morning runs.

255 days to go.  Wow.  So do I LIKE to run?  The jury is still out on that one.  I like some of the benefits of running: ever so slightly smaller butt, able to eat things larger than my head, and a reduction in my crabbiness level on the days I've given the endorphins a boost.  I just wish running would erase cellulite.  But do I LIKE to run? I dunno.  We'll see how this whole thing pans out.