Pancake Boots

In my last blog I explained I am training for a mini-marathon. When I go for runs I often bring our dog Pancake along. She loves this! In fact she knows that I am going running the second I pull my shoes out, and from that point on she is going crazy. She whines, jumps, barks, and cries until she is on her leash and is outside running with me. However fairly recently she hurt her foot while running with me and ripped part of the paw pad off. So per doctor's orders I did not run with her for two weeks, and she hated seeing me leave the house in my running shoes without her. I know this because as soon as I would go out the front door she would run upstairs to the window and bark at me until I was out of sight. So when it was time for her to run again we thought we should do something to prevent such an injury in the future. So we bought doggie booties. The reason I decided to write about such a minor event is because the video of Pancake trying to walk with them on for the first time is hilarious and had to post it. So if you need a smile, please enjoy.

Slowness, injuries, age.

Today I'm writing about my current plans to run a mini-marathon in Moab this October. Now I have been running since I was a little girl. Early on in life I would run a race called the Bluegrass 10,000 every year with my dad in Lexington, KY. I was a decent runner, although I was never spectacular, but I did win a couple of trophies here in there for my age group. As I got older I continued to run, but mainly just to keep fit as part of my training as a tennis player. After college I ran my fist mini-marathon as part of the Kentucky Derby Festival. It was great, my training went well, and I felt strong and fairly in shape. However, a lot has changed since this time of eight years ago.

Now instead of 22, I am 30. Instead of 140 pounds, I'm 155. Instead of in shape, I am as this blog's name would suggest minimally in shape. With all of these changes I have become slow. I decided to train for this race after not doing a mini in so long because a friend of mine from high school is doing it and asked if I would like to join him, and because currently I am jobless and have the time to train. So I got up one morning and decided to start my training enthusiastically. This enthusiasm lasted for about 5 minutes, then I found that my "running" pace had become somewhat of a halfhearted jog over the last few years. I am officially 2 minutes per mile slower than I was eight years ago. Granted eight years ago I was not training at 6,650 feet, but still.

On top of being slower, I have also noticed it has become significantly easier for me to injure myself. When I was younger I never really had any major injuries, and almost no minor injuries for that matter. Yet I was pretty hard on my body at the time. In the last 6 months I have dislocated two ribs (from sneezing), sprained my neck (crashing on my mountain bike), and severely jammed my right thumb (while climbing).

But despite all the new challenges that age, and laziness have brought to me I'm actually still enjoying all this stuff. I like my training so far for the race, because the race is such a great motivator to get up and exercise when you don't really feel like it. Plus the training program I am doing includes cross training days which has allowed me to do other things besides run. Tomme and I have enjoyed riding our bikes downtown to breakfast on those days (I find I am even more motivated when there is food involved), and we even discovered that a park near our house that we thought was small and really only had a playground and baseball field, is actually huge and has fairly extensive mountain biking and hiking trails as well as great views of Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak (like the one above). All in all the pain and sad realization that my body is no longer 22 is well worth the advantages of setting a goal that motivates you and expands your horizons. I highly recommend that all of you at least once this year sign up to run or walk a race that will motivate you to get up in the morning and get outside.