In the beginning …

Well, I thought I should start at the beginning even though I’m already 2 months into my training. I wouldn’t want to leave anything out. I started my training on Feb 15, 2010. Now for those of you that have not experienced a winter in Wisconsin, you know that you don’t want to be outside for an extended amount of time in February. However, we have been blessed with a treadmill from some great friends of ours so I was able to train in the comfort of my own home. My first run was only 2 miles, which I was able to do quiet easily I thought. After this I thought that this was going to be a piece of cake. Well, looking back it has been a piece of cake if the cake is one of the most difficult cakes ever to make. My second time on the treadmill was … not like the first. I don’t know if the incline was set higher than 0, but my calves burned like crazy and I couldn’t run the full 2 miles. I started doubting if I was going to be able to do this half marathon thing since I couldn’t even run 1 mile without needing a break. The third time on the treadmill was like the second. Thanks to my running buddy I was able to do some better stretching exercises and I was able to get through it though it still hurt. The next week I was out of town for over a week for a tradeshow for work and I only ran 2 times in 2 weeks (Yikes). After that I was better at keeping to my schedule and I’ve slowly increased my distance on the treadmill. I got up to 6 miles on the treadmill without stopping to walk in the middle. I was pretty pleased with my efforts except that whenever I told anyone about it (especially those that are runners) they would say “running outside is totally different.” So I got a little (ok a lot) nervous about transitioning to running outside. That story will come next post. Gotta run.