First, I am not a track star, and in no way am I fast. It all started about 2 years ago. My friend/neighbor Kim and I decided that we had to get in better shape after both having 10 lbs babies (2 months apart). We started to walk together regularly on weekends, then evenings, then after she twisted my arm, we moved our workouts to dark-30 in the morning. After about 8 months of regular exercise and 3-months of weight-watchers, I lost 30 pounds. Exciting, but realize that I had gained all of my pregnancy weight back after having Savannah. This was a good start.
Kim and I then started to add bits of running into our walking routine with no goals of becoming "runners" but just to mix it up a little. My total running history included accomplishing a one-mile run (my first ever to my knowledge) near the end of my doctorate program in 2001. I was soooo proud.
In March of 2008, a group at my school was talking about doing the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 5k in memory of my dear friend Jayne (my daughter is Savannah Jayne after this dear lady), who passed away from cancer in October 2007. We signed up and began training to run the entire way. WOW! It was a big undertaking training our bodies to run for that long. I think we made it to 2.7 miles in our training before the big day. The race day came, and we did it (although I thought I was going to die at mile 2). From that point on, I was hooked, or should I say obsessed with running.
