Meet The Half Virgin

My name is Kristi and I'm a "half virgin". Half marathon virgin, that is. (My husband, Jake, hates the name of this blog). My journey to run my first half marathon began in October 2010. My sister-in-law challenged some family members to a weight loss competition. We started the week after I turned 30, following a weekend of margaritas and really bad (but oh, so tasty) food. That first workout I think I could smell the tequila that I was sweating out of my system. I couldn't run even a half mile. My pace on the treadmill was 4.3 miles per hour. Over the next 2 months I gradually increased my time on the treadmill to an hour, jogging 5 12-minute miles. I lost 22 pounds and won the contest (and cash prize). On December 5th, my sister-in-law ran her first half, the Dallas White Rock. When she was training, I thought to myself, "There's no way I could ever run that far or that long." I've been through not one, but TWO, fire academies and hated every step of the running we did. Running sucks. Or, at least it always has. Seeing her run past us on the course, I was inspired by her strength. I wanted that for myself. I started training on Monday, December 19, 2010.

I'm playing a bit of catch up since I didn't start blogging from the beginning. I've increased my mileage and my times have gotten faster. I'm up to 8 miles on my long run as of this week. My first 10k is tomorrow. I've entered some 5ks and run as much as the first 2 miles, but never been able to run an entire 5k. And here I am running a 10k. In it's entirety.

I drove the course earlier this week to get a feel for it. Holy hills!!! The first mile is nothing but big, rolling hills. Once I clear the first mile it flattens out until mile 4-5. My plan is to start super slow and not let the hills burn out my legs. I know I can handle the distance. My goal is under 66 minutes.