Welcome!

Last week I decided I needed to try something different as far as running was concerned. I tend to shy away from running races only because I hate losing, and let's be honest-I'm not winning any races. But after running a 5K last October and beating my time by nearly three minutes, I realized it's not about winning the race--it's about running the race as best you can. The problem is that now I feel like I have to beat myself every time I run one. Ugh, it's a constant game I play with myself...I always have do better than the last time.
Whatever. I decided to run a trail race after reading a blog posting on Healthy Tipping Point. The author of this post ran a 15 mile trail race through a state park in Florida and man, her pictures made me so jealous! So I found a much smaller, more tolerable trail race to run in Nashua, N.H. It was called the Otter Run 5K and it was actually a really nice course. It turned out to be more like a road race than a trail race since the course was paved, but it was pretty to run through the woods. And I beat my time again by 20 seconds. So now my most recent 5K time stands at 26:18.

Me after the race. Obviously thrilled to have beat my time.


To prepare myself for this race I decided to go for a run at the Middlesex Fellsway Medford. The trail I ran was 5.2 miles long, but I really thought it was only 3.7. I was a little nervous when I realized how far it was but I surprisingly made it through with no issues. It was really pretty, and even though I fell within the first 10 minutes of the run (and I have the bruises to show it!) I really enjoyed the challenge. It's really hard to run trail runs because you have to watch your every step. It's physically impossible to run the entire trail because there are big tree roots and rocks to climb over and hills to climb up and down, so you have to be extra cautious. I will definitley do make this a weekly addition to my workouts!

Below, Marley and Dylan at their finest.




Today I went for a really long walk to loosen up my legs from the race yesterday. Hopefully the weather will continue to warm up, since we had a tease on Friday with 70 degree weather and today it's 50 and really windy. Tomorrow is Marathon Monday (Boston Marathon) so I might go downtown and cheer on some of the runners...depends on the weather and if I can find someone to go with.

Enjoy your Sunday!