I’ve never been a runner. When I was a freshman or sophomore in high school, my dad decided to enter in an all comers meet that the track team hosted for community athletes. My father has always been an athlete. He’s done marathons, bike rices, canoeing, cross country skiing and some combinations of those activities. When he decided to enter the local all comers meet, I went along with him to watch and see just how badly he was going to kick everyone else’s ass. The day of the meet was miserable. It was rainy and cold and I spent most of my time running between the timing tent and the concession stand where they were selling hot chocolate. My dad eventually ran his race. I don’t remember what race it was but I do remember that he beat the high school track star who was none to happy to be shown up by a 40 some year old dude. It was awesome. What was not so awesome was as a result of my father’s kick ass run, the track coach, Dennis, decided that it was his duty to stalk me for my entire high school career. He figured that since my father was a runner, I must be a runner. He finally gave up when I joined the swim team but I could tell he was disappointed.
Flash forward fifteen plus years and I’m deciding that I need to get into better shape. I’ve heard about this program called “Couch to 5k” and while I have no desire to run a marathon, I think that as a fairly healthy 30 year old, I should be able to run 3 miles. I didn’t care about my form or how fast I was. I just wanted to run a 5k and see how it went. I spent the entire summer working through the Couch to 5k program and eventually I made it to the run for 30 mins mark. I was slow, but I didn’t care. I entered my first 5k on Halloween 2011 and I ran the entire race. Since then I have run four 5k’s:
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| Legacy 5k, Run Like Hell, Drumstick Dash & The Jingle Bell Run. |
I like running races with themes and I have discovered that I like running with groups of people. It’s fun and motivating. I also love it when people dress up and have fun while exercising. I mean what’s cooler than running a race beside a zombie? Or a guy dressed up like giant Christmas present? Or a bunch of teenagers dressed as turkeys? I still don’t really have a desire to run a long race but I’ve signed up for my 5th 5k on Feb. 25 🙂
Brianna Pike 