Ben's First Race!

On Thanksgiving morning Ben ran his first race... the 1 mile Gobble Wobble!!  His Uncle Daniel ran it with him.  His focused personality certainly shone through... his only goal was to beat the person in front of him... :)

He never stopped running and ran the mile in 11 minutes!!!  GO BEN!!  

The Gobble Wobbler...

With his ribbon!

T-day Turkey Trot 5k

As I have blogged about a few times, my sister-in-law Becki and I started running back in June with the goal of running the Turkey Trot 5k on Thanksgiving morning, and... WE DID IT!

My race buddies - Pre-race!
L-R: Becki, Meredith, Micah, Noah (Mers brother), Me, Brent (Lara's Dad) & Lara

Some cute spectators, watching for their uncles, aunts, friends and mama cross the finish line!

We we are huffing across the finish line.
Our goal was under 40 minutes and our official time was 35min 37sec.

Sweaty, post-race crowd. :)

The fireman ran in full gear... awesome!

My running buddy, without her I wouldn't have stuck with it! :)

Here we go...

THIS...


OR THIS...
That is the question....

I just registered for my very first 5k race. My sister-in-law Becki and I (and hopefully my brother Micah and some other friends too) will be running the Turkey Trot 5k on Thanksgiving morning. (I picked the race with the least intimidating name - no "iron man" here...)

As I blogged about a while ago, Becki and I started walking back in May, and started a program to run 20 minutes back in July. We fell off the wagon for September while I had a booth at the fair and she took a Nurse Assistant class, and we got back on the wagon in October. We have been running about 25 minutes, and hope to get to 30 or more before the race...

Ready or not... here we go!

I guess the only question left to answer is whether or not I am going to look more like turkey 1 or 2 by the end of the race.... (although neither one is very attractive - I am hoping for alive rather than dead) ... we shall see!

New Hobby #2: Running

I know what you are thinking... What? She is crazy!?! Well, you would be right. And I am SOOOOOOOOOO far from being a real runner.... but one day at a time.

My sister-in-law Becki and I started walking 3 miles 3-4 times a week back in May. In June we decided "why not try a little jogging..." and a little bit after that we were addicted. So, we are now on week 5 of a 10 week program to get up to running 20 minutes... and then we will go another 10 weeks to go from 20-30 minutes... which is close to a 5k. I definitely would not have stuck with it this long if I didn't have a buddy, Becki has been awesome and I look forward to getting to hang out with her so much (6 hours a week :).... even if it means getting out of bed at 5:35am. I am still not to the point where I really enjoy the running part... but I am getting there... and I love the feeling of those last three cool-down walking laps. :)

When we started my father-in-law let me borrow his Runners Handbook:


It has been awesome and extremely helpful. It really is The Runner's Handbook... it walks you through EVERYTHING! There is a 40 page chapter on buying your first shoes!

I also liked the 10-week program the best out of all the ones I have read about. It is a "pyramid" so you run the most in the middle of your time, instead of just 1 minute walking - 3 running etc. As an example... this week we started week 5 which is 2-5-8-3 running, with 1 minute walk breaks in between.

It is amazing to see what your body can handle. I never thought i would get even to week 5. At the beginning we started with 1-1-2-2-1-1 with 2 minute walk breaks... and it really was all we could handle, but we have noticed that we recover faster, we can breathe easier etc. a little more each week.

I also got THIS BOOK from the library last week:




It has some great success stories (they did a 12-week program with a handful of people and then reported back on their results). It is written in a week by week format, so I have found it less helpful when it comes to finding information... espeicially since I am not exactly following THEIR program... but I have found a few helpful things.

So, in case you are like me... and one of the last people on the planet who ever thought about jogging/running... there are a few books for you to go to!

And for all your Ashevillians... we are planning to run the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Morning... and we would love to have a crowd join us! Let me know if you are planning on it!

(So, I guess now that I have posted about it, I had better stick with it. :-P)