Tag! I'm it!

From Karen:

Copy the rules (or your version of them) and the set of questions onto your blog post, provide your own answers and then tag at least 5 new people. If tagged, you’ll find your name at the end of this post.

To be sure everyone tagged knows they’ve been invited to play, go to their blogs and leave them a comment notifying and referring them to your blog for details.

Lastly, once the chosen have answered the questions on their own blog, they should come back to yours to tell you.

Here are my responses.


1. How would you describe your running 10 years ago?

Completely nonexistent. I've always said I hated running. I feel ungainly when I run, all limbs that don't know how to work together. And I would have felt that even more so 10 years ago, when I weighed somewhere north of 200 lbs and was in horrible physical shape. I found racewalking in 2002 as a result of wanting to move more quickly without resorting to running.


2. What is your best and worst run/race experience?

I haven't run a race yet. I'm supposed to do that in less than 2 months! But I racewalked (and jogged, a little bit) most of the competitive 4-mile course of Racine's Lighthouse Run a few weeks ago. This is what inspired me to try C25K, seriously this time. Being surrounded by all of these runners made me want to run a race and finish it. Which I am currently slightly failing at, but that's another story, and I'm nowhere near epic fail status, so I just need to climb back on the wagon.

3. Why do you run?

Running, for me, represents stepping outside of my physical comfort zone. I can bench press 45-50 lbs reliably. I can do back and front and overhead squats with a 45# bar. I can do jumping pullups, and modified pushups, and air squats. I know how to do a clean and a jerk and a push-press and a deadlift. I finally learned how to swim a few months ago. I have racewalked a 10:30/mile pace. I can push myself physically. And every time I was confronted with the 400-yd run in a Crossfit workout, I would groan, cringe, think about running, and then racewalk instead. When I start Crossfit again in September, I want to be able to run the running portions of workouts. Doesn't have to be quickly, but I want to solidly be able to run them.

4. What is the best or worst piece of advice you’ve been given about running?

The best thing I've seen is for motivation - if you want to give up, allow yourself to do that once you get through the next 30 seconds, to the next curve in the road, till the next song comes on the ipod. More often than not, once you get there, you'll renegotiate the next possible stopping point. And you won't stop until you're done. It works for me.

5. Tell us something surprising about yourself that not many people would know.

I've gained almost 20 lbs. in the last year. I will have been away from Crossfit for a year by the time I get back to a Crossfit affiliate. Part of my struggles in the last year with my weight have been because of leaving Crossfit Milwaukee. I tried to find ways to motivate myself toward physical activity on my own, but it all fell apart because it wasn't Crossfit. I am hoping that C25K will provide a reasonable substitute in the next couple of months. I have resolved to walk into Windy City Crossfit in September and go through the beginner program again (after a year, I've lost all that I built up over 4 months last year) and start reliably doing workouts.

I want to do, with C25K, what I did with Crossfit - stick with it and see the results. I'm trying to find a way to get workouts in and still work the hours I need to at work. This week, work's been winning. Hoping to get out for a run tomorrow at least.