Happy Birthday and Running Rewind

Happy Birthday..... to ME!!!!

Today is my 29th birthday. Rather than doing a year in review of things that have happened since my last birthday, i thought i'd doing a running recap. (and there's a few pics thrown in for fun!)

I've been running for one year. December 29th, 2009, I decided to tackle a huge task. What seemed impossible to me at the time.

I emailed Sarah and told her i wanted to run one mile and made it a goal. Little did i know, that running would become such a big part of my life in 2010.

On December 29th, 2009, I ran 3 minutes on the treadmill. That was all i could do.

I tried to increase my time little by little, until i reached 1 mile on January 7th, Sarah's Birthday.

I continued to run on the treadmill, slowly adding to the distance i could run. At that time, i was more concerned about how long i could run, rather than the actual distance.

Here are the stats:

1 Mile-January 7th

2 Miles- February 11th

3 Miles- Feburary 25th

4 Miles- May 12th

5 Miles- July 21st

6 Miles- July 28th

7 Miles- August 14th

8 Miles- August 20th

9 Miles- September 6th

10 Miles- September 25th

11 Miles- October 2nd

12 Miles- October 8th

13 Miles- October 24th

Races:

5K- April 25th

15K- September 6th

Half Marathon- October 24th

Full Marathon- ???? Hopefully, one day!!!

Running has completely changed my life. In the year that i've been running, i feel more fit, more active, and love having a sport that is challenging and so rewarding. I've lost over 20lbs in the year, which i contribute to running. I ran over 400 miles last year. That's over 40,000 calories burned which comes to almost 12 lbs of weight loss from just running. I want to say all that, because it seemed so impossible this time last year. It took me 9 full months of running to get to 10 miles, which i thought i would never be able to do. I love seeing results and remembering how excited i was when i hit my first mile. I remember all the txts and phone calls to Sarah to update her on my progress, celebrating each mile. It's been a great year, and i'm so thankful. Def want to give a shout out to TPG, who inspired me to start running in the first place. I honestly don't know if i would've ever even considered it, had it not been for her. All the early long runs on Saturdays, the bad runs where i've felt defeated, the amazing runs where i was left feeling invincible, all have brought me more joy that i can even believe.

Here's hoping next birthday i can say i've run 600 + miles!!

love ya'll!!!!

Laura