The Transformation of a Runner

I have been a runner all of my life, but the frequency of training has ranged from very good to very bad. Recently, I was talking to my Uncle Dave at our family's annual Easter Egg hunt about all the running that I had done in the past years.

• Rex Lee 5K Run four times (2002, 2003, 2007, 2008)
  
• Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay Race with some other crazy people (June 2007)
  
• Freedom Run 10K (07/04/07)
  
• Deseret Morning News Marathon (July 24, 2007)
  
• Spanish Fork half-marathon (09/08/07)
  

At the time I was just happy to complete all of these races, but it has instilled a desire to now work towards better times, better health, and overall a better life as I learn to set goals and reach them. I kind of joked with my uncle that it might be good for me to set up a blog site so that I would have to post my progress and be accountable to write up my runs.




I just ran the Rex Lee 5K for 2008 on March 15th. I wanted to beat my time last year, which I did (2007 - 28:39.53 vs. 2008 28:01), but it wasn't enough. I really want to run a 5K where I can win my division. In order to do that, I need to run a 5K in 20 minutes if not less. That means that I need to get my mile down to a 6 minute mile. I even had my brothers (age 14 & 16) put together a playlist of running songs that would help to motivate me. Even with that I was not able to reach my goal this year. I was really bummed, but I had to remember that I had bronchitis for 2 weeks beforehand and was not allowed to train properly. On the positive side I have next year and lots of other races to run in between to get ready for it.

I now have a goal to run the Boston Marathon someday, which means in order to qualify, I need to run a marathon in 3 hours and 40 minutes. My first marathon was run in 4 hours and 35 minutes. Not bad for a first time runner and very plausible to get my time down. I would also like to run a marathon/race in each state in the USA. I am signing up for at least 2 more marathons in the next year, St. George & the Sedona, AZ marathon (which I will run with my good friend Lachelle, her husband Rob and her father). Within that time I will look for 5K's, 10K's and half-marathons to help me train and keep up my training.

I am going to use this blog to write down my efforts and I hope that my friends and family will use it to give me pointers and encouragement throughout.

"When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates." -Elder Thomas S. Monson, Improvement Era, Dec. 1970,

This is only the beginning. . .