Marathon Bug

First, a little background about me. I am a 33 year old mother of one very spirited 2 year old son, and I've been married for 12 years. I am a graphic designer (hence the blog title Designed2Run). I recently started running again after gaining back baby weight and dealing with post partum anxiety and depression. The first year of my son's life, I put the baby weight back on slowly and was eager to get it off. So my initial goal was weight loss, and I signed up for a half marathon in August 2015 as a finish line to my goal. During that time, I began with walking and worked up to run/walk intervals. The weight slowly started to fall off and my love for running grew. I made it to my goal that August and completed the half marathon.

But, let me back up a little bit. I've always been athletic. I was a tomboy growing up and loved playing basketball and football with the boys. In fact, I almost always beat my older brother in any athletic endeavors. Then, freshmen year of high school, the track coach distributed flyers to all the freshman girls. This sparked my interest as I had always been deemed fast by my friends...so, I joined!

It became a good extracurricular activity, as well as something in which I was good. And of course, I enjoyed the competition! As track season wrapped up that year, my coach (who coincidentally was also the cross country coach) encouraged me to join the cross country team, promising me that it would improve my track season. So as a sophomore, I dropped out of band that fall to join the CC team (I was in flag corps freshman year). At the beginning, it was hard. Harder than I imagined. But as the miles piled up, I got better. Faster. Stronger. And although I never made it past JV and most certainly was not the fastest, I learned that although I was a much better sprinter than distance runner, I could still do it.

Sophomore year, I joined track again...as well as junior year, and also senior year. I was a 100m-200m sprinter freshman year, but after that I was moved to mostly 400m and still some 200m. I'm guessing because we had very few 400m runners. Sophomore year, I was on the 4x400m relay team with all seniors. I pretty much HATED the 400m because it's too short to be able to run a slow steady pace, but almost too far to be an all-out sprint. I particularly remember the first time I ran the 400 in a meet. I sprinted about 2/3 of the way around the track, then barely made it to the finish because I had used up all my energy too fast. At the time, if it was too hard, I didn't like. Looking back, it was more of a challenge and I should've just rose to it.

Junior year, I did not join cross country. Just like the 400m, it was hard and I didn't feel like I was fast enough. I was a middle of the pack runner and being JV instead of Varsity was sort of crushing for me. Senior year, I was coaxed into joining CC again by my coach, but I ended up injured and only competed in one meet.

Post high school, the running stopped for quite some time. I got busy with college and work, and it just sort of fell of the radar. Until I had worked a few years in the corporate world, and the desk jobs took their toll on my weight. I gained a few pounds (ok, 30 lbs) and by 2009, I was laid off and finally had the time to actually do something about it. This was the first time I decided to set a goal of losing some weight and signed up for my first half marathon (Mini in Indianapolis 2010). Hubby was also laid off at the time (long story but this time in our life was rough, mentally and financially, but that's another story altogether), so I had him sign up for the race with me (even though he's not a runner at all).

By May 2010, it was time for my first half. I hadn't trained smart...in fact, life got in the way so much that I only got up to about 7 miles for my longest run, so the race was difficult and painful, but, I finished. That instilled in me that I could channel my inner strength to accomplish great things. BTW, I also lost that extra 30 lbs. I talked about above. After the initial pain of the race subsided (weeks later, mind you), I decided I would continue with running and set my sights on another race - Disney World half marathon in January 2011. Again, with minimal training (oops, someday I will learn), I completed it 2 minutes faster than the Mini.

After this, I still wanted more. Didn't I learn the first 2 times?
So I signed up for the Mini again in 2011.

At this point, all this lack in training caught up to me, and I got side-lined with hip bursitis and took many weeks off running prior to the race. The rest definitely helped because I smashed my half marathon PR by 15 minutes!

A month after this, I got pregnant, had 2 miscarriages in a row, then spent a year in infertility hell before finally falling pregnant with my son in October 2012.

Fast forward to August 2015 where I had lost the baby weight and completed my 4th half marathon in Vancouver, then signed up for my 5th half in Detroit, MI.

Now that I have 5 half marathons under my belt, I've decided that I am setting my sights on a FULL marathon in the fall of 2016.

My race calendar for next year looks something like this so far:

January
February - 5K race
March - 5K or 10K Race
April - 5K or 10K Race
May - Mini 1/2 Marathon - Indianapolis (3rd time doing this one)
June
July - Rock n Roll 1/2 Marathon - Chicago
August - Michigan Mile, Crim 10m
Sept
Oct - Bank of American Chicago Marathon (providing I get in lottery-style)
Nov
Dec

Chicago Marathon - Fall 2016 - Fingers crossed

I want this blog to serve as a reminder to how far I've come, how far I still have to go, and a diary of my running/racing adventures.

Now that I have this goal to become a marathoner, tell me...what motivated you to start running?



d2r