Tom's Blog

Well, I had my first race under my belt, and I was feeling pretty good about it. I finished better than I thought I would, but man was I sore afterward. So I took a few days, and set my sights on the next challenge.

Up next was the Kappa Delta ShamRock 'n Run on April 19th. I knew I needed to get more serious about my running and I did, comparatively at least. I thought I was doing pretty good. I was averaging about 8 miles a week. Not much looking back now, but at the time I was happy with it, and really felt like I was pushing myself. The Kappa Delta race was at Iroquois Park, and I had never ran there, but I thought I was ready anyway. Needless to say the "Hills" kicked my but. I found out real quick just how unprepared I was for that race. My time wasn't bad at 33:16, but I thought I was about to die when I crossed that finish line. All in all though the Kappa Delta race was well put on event, and I look forward to doing it again this year.

The next race to challenge me was the Throo the Zoo 5K on May 10th. I was really looking forward to this event. I thought it would be a lot of fun to run through the zoo. I of course didn't really consider how many hills there would be for this race. All of my training was still just building my stamina, and not working on any kind of hill training. I didn't have quite as good a finish at this event, but I still enjoyed it, My wife, Mother, sister, and niece all ran/walked this event with me. My neice tried to run with me the whole way, and did really well until about the 2.5 mile mark, then she really ran out of gas. I wasn't going to just let her walk back by herself, so I stayed with here and motivated her to run when ever she felt like she could. We still managed to finish in 33:52. I was more than happy with that just to have her finish.

The final race for me for the second quarter was the YMCA Run to the Sun on June 7th. This was another downtown Louisville run. There is just something I like about running races downtown, and I really can't even tell you what it is. Maybe it's because my first race was, or maybe it's just because I normally just try to avoid downtown due to traffic, but put me in a run down there, and I just love it. Any way, this would be my biggest challenge yet, a 4 mile race. I had been increasing my training run distances, and my endurance was getting better. I ended up finishing the 4 miles in 41:45, and although this is still not a great time and not under my goal of 10 mpm, it was the first race that I truely ran every single step without walking.

Second quarter ended strong for me, and I was really starting to find that it just might be possible to actually enjoy running. I was actually looking forward to the next few months.