Hello Monday!

It is a whole, brand spanking new week! I used to hate Mondays, but I am pretty excited about them now. Mainly because I love the idea of not only a brand new day, but a brand new week. Not to mention I always feel re energized by my Sunday (ok, not always, but usually).

I have so much to be thankful for, and so much to look forward too. Ok, so I have a ton of homework. I'm not kidding. The pile is just getting bigger and bigger. And I oftentimes feel pretty overwhelmed by the fact that I am working full time and doing two heavy-on-the-homework senior classes.

But I can do it. One assignment at a time. (Not to mention I keep on using made up words in my paper. I'm just waiting to see if anyone catches on to them or not.)

The most exciting, biggest thing I am looking forward to is running! Hello to a whole new week of training!

I've been saying I would talk about running for a while now, so here is a little introduction.

I have always, and I mean always wanted to be a runner. But I never believed that I could do it. Not in a million years did I think that I could ever run. Walk? Yes. Run? Never in a million years.

I would see those beautiful people (let's admit it, almost every time you see someone running they are pretty darn beautiful) running effortlessly up hills (ok, so I just thought it was effortless for them and impossible for lazy me) and I would think to myself, "Oh how I wish I could run!"

I made the mistake of telling my husband how awesome it would be to run. I even tried several times to do it. I would go to an indoor track and attempt to run for a minute, walk for two. Or run from this marker to that maker. But I never kept it up. I felt so darn intimidated by the many, incredibly fast people and what I thought were their judging eyes. I felt like some joke. So I stopped going.

And then Stephen came home with running shoes. They were an early Christmas present. They were beautiful.

They terrified me. Seriously, nothing was quite as scary as those new shoes.

And then Stephen took me down to a river trail, and he ran with me. Step by slow, slow, slow step we ran. He wouldn't let me stop. He pushed me to try a little harder, go a little faster and in some instances it was a never ending chant of, "Just keep going, you can do this!"

He was with me every step of my first mile run. And I was hooked.

I ran my first 5K that year. I crossed it off my New Years Resolution list. I wasn't very fast, but I did it! And then... I stopped running.

Since that first 5K I've flirted with running. I've gone a mile or two every once in a while.

But not anymore! Nope. This year my resolution was to run a 10k. I signed up for one last month. I'm running the Turkey 10k on my birthday (which also happens to be Thanksgiving Day). I am giving myself the best birthday gifts ever: health, strength, goal-reaching and pure awesomeness.

I am going to cross that resolution off my list, and then reach for the next one: Half-Marathon.

Bring it Baby!

I'll be writing a lot more about my motivation, overcoming my panic about running a 10K (or running period) and what running means for me. For right now, I'm just celebrating how excited I am to be training for my Birthday 10k!

(I'm linking up with Lisa today, Hi Lisa! :) )