Running has been an intricate part of maintaining my health and fitness.  I began my running journey as a means of getting some time to myself.  As I progressed, I decided to participate in running events.

I’ll never forget my first event. It was the Mercury News 10K held in San Jose on March 19, 1995. I was fully dressed in a thick grey & purple hooded sweatshirt with matching capris leggings and an afro-centric cap. Hair done…nails done…everything did…lol. Despite being heavily overdressed my time was 1:07:38. Not bad for my first race as a rookie.

Off and on I participated in various events including, but not limited to, the Big Sur 5K, Nutrition Fuels Fitness 5K, Elk Grove Fun Run 5K, Sacramento Zoo Zoom 5K, Fleet Feet Women’s 5K, Buffalo Migration 10M, and River City Run 10K. At some point in time, I set a “bucket list” goal to complete a half-marathon by the time I turned 50 years of age. I ran the Silver State Half Marathon, north of Lake Tahoe in August 2006. The altitude made it challenging to breathe. My time was 2:41:54 using a 3:1 run/walk method. Since this time, I’ve also participated in the River City Half-Marathon knocking 10 minutes off the time using the run/walk method.

As you probably detected, time isn’t a motivating factor for me. I run for fun!

Thanks to MH Runners, I’m getting back into the groove of running……………………….

I started running to reduce my “need to buy bigger clothes” expense and to prove my boss wrong! Back at the end of 2007 one of my co-workers put out a challenge to all workers. The challenge was to run a full marathon!

I have a “healthy” competitive side to me but I was hesitant to take on the challenge because I haven’t seriously trained for a race before. I usually just “wing it” but I knew there is no way I could do that for a 26.2 mile run. The thing that ultimately pushed me to take on the challenge was that my boss said “there’s no way you can finish a full marathon”. That was it! Game on! We started the Hal Higdon Novice 1 Marathon 18 week training plan.

Long story short, I did prove my boss wrong! On March 2, 2008, I successfully finished the Napa Valley Marathon! After that I’ve been hooked on running. Additionally I’ve gotten into triathlons (swim, bike, run). I completed my first full Ironman triathlon on 7/31/2010!

Here is my race report from that first full Ironman race:

http://beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=221131

As you can guess from all the training and racing miles, I have learned alot about what to do and what not to do. A few of my long term goals are to:

1. Pass on the knowledge I have learned over the years to others that are just getting into endurance sports.

2. Get at least 1 new person every year to get “hooked” into running or cycling, like my co-worker did for me.

3. “20 by 40”, run 20 full marathons by the time I’m 40 years old!

Here is a list of my race results:

http://athlinks.com/racer/results/82104215

“There’s always a way!”