Day 1

So in the past, I have attempted to blog and been totally random about actually putting up post.  With this new blog, I honestly hope to get on here once a day and share what is going on in my running life.

Today marked the very first day of my training for the Cheveron Houston Marathon, which is 138 days away.  I haven't run much in the last three weeks because I honestly felt like my legs needed a major break after my past marathon.

Ran 8 miles from my house, down around the lake, and back.  It is a beautiful run that gives you a little variety in the terrain.  You run down the prospect street hill around 2 miles and then get to come back up it around 5 1/2 miles.  Other than that the terrain is mostly flat and you see plenty of walkers/runners around the lake.  I have always found that I like seeing people when I am out on my runs.  Even if you don't know them, you know you already share a common interest.  Usually, I will wave at complete strangers and get a little wave back.  Makes me happy :)  Overall, legs felt great today.  After taking some time to recover, my first running stride was one of pure joy.  It was as if my legs were saying, it is about time!  I ran almost the entire way with a smile today.  Hard to believe 24 hours ago Irene was blowing through and today the sun was out for a perfect weather day.

Recently, I finished Ryan Hall's book, Running with Joy.  It brought a lot of interesting thoughts into my mind.  I initially wanted to read it to see exactly what his running schedule looked like; however, as I went through the book I become more and more interested in his talks on religion and running with the pure joy that God intends you to run with.  I am going to try to bring that more into my running.  Not worrying every second about how fast I am but rather just enjoying the time I spend out there.  I will never in my life be able to run with the elite athletes of the running world; however, I feel through time I can learn to find total peace in running just like so many of them have.