My Running History

I started running in 2005, my reason was simple. Lower my blood pressure by losing weight, and running was my method. I entered a 5k and was hooked. I immediately started looking for my next challenge. I found the sunburst 1/2 marathon in South Bend, Indiana but it was only 2 months away. Never the less I signed up and in early June I was running my first 1/2 marathon. I trained hard and ran it 2:24 Slow but I did it. About a week after the Sunburst 1/2 marathon, I wanted a bigger challenge.

I signed up for the 2005 Chicago Marathon. I found a training plan online from Hal Higdon and started training. I trained well but as all first marathons go it was slow and I finished in 5:20. For a month afterwards I couldn't get myself to run, I didn't have a goal. In late November I was accepted into an internship with mercedes-benz and was to move to Germany in January of 2006.

I found a site called marathonguide.com and found a marathon I liked. It was the city of Rome Marathon in April. I figured it was perfect, close to Germany and it would be at a nice temperature for that time of year too. I started training in December that gave me five months to get in decent training.

When I got to Germany a lot changed because I didn't have a car I walked every where and because Europe's food is much higher quality I ate less. Consequently I lost weight. I also lived in a part of Germany that had lots of hills. Hill training was unavoidable I was always either running up or down. During training my mile times dropped from 9:30-10:00/ mile to 5:40-6:30/mile depending on what day it was. Training was going really well, and as the marathon approached I felt really good. The day had finally arrived and I hopped a plane to Rome.

My parents were going to meet me there. The marathon happened to fall on their college's spring break so they decided to use it as an excuse to travel. I meet up with them but as usual they put me in a really bad mood. Not good. I went to bed and woke up my parents continued to hound my about all kinds of irrelevant things and I got in an even worse mood. I walked to the start and off we went. It turns out this is not a good race for a PR. The incredibly rude competitors, who ran the race only as a way to tour the city and clog up the streets while they took pictures(thats right DURING the race!), and the lack of proper champion chips made the marathon a nightmare.

My bad mood got worse. At some point during the race my chip fell off. The officials decided that the tried and true method of chip fixation was not good enough so they taped it the back of the race number. My entire goal for the race was time oriented. I wanted a serious PR but even if I was able to run the entire race fast from the very beginning I could not get that official time without the chip. I was incredibly demoralized and was not thinking clearly, at mile 20 I dropped out. It was stupid I know, and I have regretted it to this day.

After the race my parents wanted to see where I lived so they flew to Germany with me, it was an OK week. I put on a good face and after a week they left to go back to America. I got on the computer still reeling from the previous weekend's defeat and found another marathon just 3 weeks away. It was the Sao Antonio Maratona in Padova Italy near Venice. That marathon was also a disaster.

I was not recovered from the previous marathon and in those three weeks the temperature rose 20 degrees Fahrenheit. I had trained all winter in temperatures that ranged from -20 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit but I had not trained for a 98 degree marathon! My time was incredibly slow probably due to the major dehydration i suffered from in the hot italian sun. I finished in 5:24, it was absolutely horrible.

After that I signed up for Chicago 2006 as I would be home and this would give me some reason to keep running; though I didn't feel like it. The summer months passed away and my runs had been confined to 10-15 mile runs along the Neckar river just because thats what I did. I moved back to the US in august and tried to convince myself to train but I just could not. August became September which became October but I hadn't done any serious training since Germany. The race came and was freakishly cold. Once again I was not prepared for the temperature and I froze. Race day was 28-31 and snowing! I finished the race in 5:27 with no training. After that I really couldn't get myself to run.

I didn't stop completely but I started gaining back all that weight I had lost in Germany and then I gained back all the weight that I had lost in 2005. Dark days indeed. As spring rolled around I decided to get back to running. I had found something new to be excited about; trail running. I also discovered barefoot running which made running all the more fun and easy! I lost alot of the weight that I had put on during winter and started gaining back my endurance, though not my speed. I have now started biking and swimming and am working my way towards triathlon. I will be competing in Iron Man Wisconsin 2008.