Crystal City 5K Fridays

So as you probably imagined, I abandoned my goal of running a mile every day in March.  I made it till St. Patrick's Day, then mistakes were made and the whole goal went kerflooey like a falling souffle.  Once one day had slipped by, then two, it hardly seemed worth it any more.

But that's rationalization for you.  I did dust off my running shoes on Friday, when my friend Luther invited me to run the Crystal City 5K.  He's a Crystal City Friday 5K aficionado.  I was a little more leery after my grim run in the rain last year, where as you'll remember, I was passed by pudgy black Labrador.  But I decided to give it a go and run again this year.

Here we are - thanks to Luther's best gal Michelle for the photos!

This time, I tried to set attainable goals for myself to keep my spirits up.  I'd pick someone in front of me, then see if I could pass them.  Woman running with a puggle?  Passed 'em.  Kindergartener jogging?  Totally passed her.  Mom pushing a double jogging stroller with two juice box-drinking kids in tow?  Nope.  That woman was a beast.  Finally at the end of the race, we were neck and neck, then at the last turn she clicked up a gear and sailed away, leaving me in the dust.

Luther looks a lot happier than me while running...

Look, he's skipping!

It's not apparent in any of the pictures that my feet ever left the ground.

This time turned out to be way more fun and less painful than the last 5k I ran, and yet, I was one minute faster last year.  Oh well, give or take a minute, who cares? It's good to get out in the fresh air and earn that day's smores latte...  I might run the 5k again at the end of this month!

And if you are the type of runner who is inspired and motivated by fancy athletic clothing (ahem), you have to peruse Nike's new tumblr: http://madebynike.tumblr.com/

All I see lately is neon and uber bright running togs, but this line of Nike women's training clothes are all downtown muted greys and mauves and blacks, almost reminiscent of Alexander Wang?  It's the type of stuff that Division 1 athletes turned Vogue staffers would wear to Pilates.

5k Slog

I ran my 2nd race on Friday, a 5k in Crystal City. If I had run this 5k first, I would never ever have run the 10 mile race. The 5k seemed harder, for some reason. It was raining the whole time. I stomped in puddles, with my $6 Forever 21 red dress purchased for the Red Dress Run hidden behind my raincoat.

Plus the pace was so much faster and I am not a fast runner. A fat Labrador wearing a red t-shirt passed me at one point.

Here's me looking sad in a pic posted with my results (29:09 minutes, way better than my high school gym class 11 minute miles). In the end, I was glad I tried it and finished. Phew! On to the next.

Here are the girls I was struggling to keep up with:

Linda in fierce mode!

10 Miler = Finished!

Turns out the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile race on Sunday was nowhere near as scary as I imagined. The first three miles were the toughest for me, but then the rest was fine. It was a beautiful day, and when I got to the finish line I was glad to be done but I felt like I could have run farther.That's a crazy statement for me, since I am not a runner at all, and I never even imagined I would ever be able to run 10 miles. But earlier in the fall, I talked to my friend Linda about running and she said if you can run 5 miles, you can run 10 miles.

I once ran 5 miles on the treadmill during a particularly engrossing episode of "Real Housewives," so I thought perhaps 10 miles was possible. And it was! So this is for everyone who said I could finish the race, and for the few who said I couldn't - mainly my dad, whose exact words were "You'll never do that."OK, so my family was skeptical, as their main memories are me parked on the couch eating fruit snacks. But I'm telling you, if I can run the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler, anyone who puts their mind to it can run it too!

10 Miler

For reasons that I now can't remember, I signed up to run the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler. Keep in mind that I am not a runner. And now it's less than a month away!When I first found out I won the lottery to get my spot, I had a nightmare about running.Me: I dreamed that I was back in high school, running the ticket run and I came in last.Joe: Was this a dream, or a memory?Ha, I was never last! Just second to last. Running two miles back then seemed like a daunting task. And now I've signed up for 10.Oh well, I've been training and everyone says it is doable. Joe's going to run with me, which will help since he's run the race before. But even though it's less than a month away, the whole idea seems very abstract. We'll see how it goes when I'm slogging through it.