Back to the Your Regularly Scheduled Blog...

Two blogs has turned out to be more work than I can handle at this point in time.

Sad day.

So, if you're interested in following our journey from couch potatoes to half marathon runners, you can read about our progress at...

www.jennfaulk.com

Thanks!

The Trainers

Serious running is different now than it was in 2003, believe it or not. I'm just a wee bit older (just a wee bit!), a little bit busier, and I have no beautiful Atlantic Ocean sunsets as rewards for my efforts. (All I'm seeing is fields of brown grass, y'all. Sing it with me -- Ok-la-ho-ma, OK!) Oh, and this time around? I have my very own personal trainers.



Don't be fooled. They look sweet, but right there in that stroller? Are two trainers that could give Jillian Michaels a run for her money.

Granted, both of them together weigh about 65 pounds, and the stroller is probably only forty pounds, so pushing it isn't all that difficult. What is difficult, however, is enduring the running commentary (pun intended) that comes with the company.

Here's a typical run for me these days...

1/2 mile in...

Ana: I think I would like a BIG donut.

Emma: I would like a LITTLE donut! HEY!!! There's a puppy! Arf! Arf! Arf!

3/4 mile in...

Ana: Mommy, it's hot out here!

Emma: Yeah! And you are going too slow, Mommy!

1 mile in...

Ana: I don't like this song. Can you change it?

Emma: Look at that puppy, Ana! Arf! Arf!

Ana: I think we should listen to the Mickey Mouse Club song.

Emma: NO! The Snow White princess song! And then, it -- arf, arf, arf! (laughing) Oh, that's a SILLY puppy over there!

1 1/2 mile in...

Ana: Hey, I can't get this water bottle open!

Emma: I will help you, Ana.... I cannot get it open, either!

Ana: HEY, MOMMY! (turning around in her seat and waving the bottle in my face) CAN YOU OPEN THIS?!

2 miles in...

Emma: Arf, arf, arf!

Ana: Arf, arf, arf! (No puppy in sight, y'all.)

2 1/2 miles in...

Emma: I would like to go home now. MOMMY! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!

Ana: Mommy, you sure are breathin' loud.

You can imagine, I'm sure, how helpful this is. Trying to do everything they need me to do while running and trying to keep up a conversation with them when they ask unnecessary questions? Well, it certainly makes for a harder workout. Despite the dialogue listed above that was indeed part of our last run, I was able to shave TWO MINUTES off of my time. How? It baffles the mind, y'all, but I think the girls actually HELP me run faster by getting my mind off the fact that I feel like I'm about to pass out.

So for that I say thank you, Trainer Ana and Trainer Emma...

Climbing Mount Sinai

When I was a junior in college, I had the opportunity to travel to Egypt for the summer. While we were there, we went to Mount Sinai, where we were able to climb to the very top. I didn't even make it a fourth of the way up. I remember feeling very foolish as I saw an elderly woman using a CANE coming back down the mountain later on that day. Surely something was wrong if I couldn't do the very same at the age of twenty-one. But what was I going to do? That was life.



A year later, it became crystal clear that if I was going to keep up with the young students I was working with in Namibia, I would need to be more in shape than I was. Far away from the temptations of fast food and mindless hours of television (we got ONE station there in Namibia), I realized that if I was going to make a real change, this was the perfect time to do it. There was no shortage of beautiful seaside places to run, so I put on my running shoes for the first time. There were some embarrassing moments (like when I tried to run three miles with a marathon training group and was lapped several times by some of them!), but after two years of giving it my snail pace best, I could have at least hung with the eighty year old ladies climbing Mount Sinai. (However, I may have required the use of a cane to do so.)



At this point, I feel like I'm facing another Mount Sinai of sorts. I keep waiting for this whole running thing to come more naturally, but it's work, each and every time I put on my running shoes. The temptation right now is to shrug my shoulders and say, "But what am I going to do? This is life." But I can see, by looking at these two pictures and reading what happened in between them that I can do this and that this new goal doesn't have to be another Mount Sinai.

This next week we're moving up to three miles a day. Wes is already there (overachiever!), and I'll be running right behind him... wish us luck!

A Long Winter's Nap...

A long, long time ago, I was going to run a marathon.

I was running every day, increasing my distance and shortening my time, calculating what I would need to accomplish to run the Cowtown in Fort Worth... and then, I met Wes, and suddenly, a good portion of my running time was better spent sitting around together talking for hours and hours and hours. Ahem.

And then? Well, then, there were so many classes and so much working and wedding planning that I was lucky to get in a two mile run a day. And THEN there was a move overseas with a baby and then ANOTHER baby, and running was less about reaching a goal and more about losing baby weight and keeping it off as I reached thirty and my metabolism took a permanent vacation.

I've had no goal in running, nothing to shoot for, since 2003. And I've been okay with that. Kinda. Sure, I felt like there could be more when I heard that my college roommate was running her TWENTIETH marathon, but that envy and admiration was nothing that a Twinkie or two (or a whole dozen!) couldn't cure. I was okay with what I was doing... which wasn't much.

Then, I picked up The Me Project. I knew I was in trouble when Kathi wrote that I needed to write down some of my goals and the only goal that kept coming to mind was, "run a marathon." Wes and I were in the midst of a long winter's nap when it came to running, and the thought of running just one mile seemed ludicrous. 26.2 miles?! HA! I put that goal aside and decided to pretend like I had never even thought of it.

I was doing a good job of that until Wes went to the doctor and discovered that his blood pressure was just a wee bit high. Okay, "wee bit high" was more like "alarmingly high," and his solution was to run like a mad man. He wasn't content with just picking up the daily jogging habit, though -- he started looking into competitive running. And then, he started looking at me. What? My blood pressure is just fine, thankyouverymuch!

Long story short, he bought me a super nice double jogging stroller, some new workout clothes (to replace the pair of running shorts I've had since I was fifteen that now have holes in the butt -- I know), and suggested that it would be easier to train if he had someone to train alongside. And let's face it, y'all. I sure could use some exercise now and then, right?

So, we began two weeks ago. And I was convinced after a quarter mile that there would be no marathons in my future. No 10Ks. And a 5K? As if! But after running every day, I was shocked to find that after just a week, I was running two and a half miles without too much exertion. Could it be that I might just possibly be able to do this crazy thing?

The jury is still out on that one, but we have a goal. Right now, we're planning on running a half marathon in 2012. And by typing this out for the whole world to see, I'm committing myself to seeing it through. My body is groaning at the mere suggestion of doing this, but after only two weeks of running just a couple of miles, Wes has normal blood pressure again. He's going to be like the Bionic Man once we get up to thirteen miles, y'all!

And me? I'm going to try my best.

So, for all of you REAL runners out there -- tell me how crazy this idea is and how I should just forget about it. Please???