My Other Quest

I think of the novel as my mental quest. I have a physical quest, as well. Last August a group of my good friends challenged each other in a weight loss / physical betterment kind of competition. The end goal is to participate as a group in the Freedom Run in Sterling, Kansas in July. When this whole thing started I was very reluctant to attempt running. I've never had much luck running in the past. I was a gymnast as a kid. I was fairly strong and flexible, but I'd never had much endurance. As well, I've had a lot of knee problems in the past. So I kind of laughed at the whole thing in the beginning.

Adina was stationed in Kuwait at the time and she had been talking about the army PT test. I guess it got me really curious... just wondering how I would do. So on a lark I ran (if you want to be generous and call it that) two miles at the gym. It took me almost 25 minutes that first time. It wasn't pretty, but I had been challenged and a competitive beast I had not realized existed have surfaced from somewhere within. By mid-January I could run the two mile in 19:34. It seems an even greater improvement when you consider that I am still upright at the end of that 19 minutes rather than wheezing, sucking air, and literally tasting blood in my mouth like I did that first run.

I've been focusing more on endurance lately. I'm trying to find my "race pace." It's an awesome thing to finish a run feeling like you have it in you to just keep going. I was out for 51 minutes today, approximately 4 miles. It was work, but I felt I had pretty much captured that pace where I could have kept going. How long? Who knows. The challenge right now is finding long, solid blocks of time when I can hit the road running.

It's really something, though. Pushing your body to beyond what you thought you could do. I'm really looking forward to the Freedom Run in July. And I'm already planning my first marathon... and dreaming about many marathons after that.