I'm a terrible person but...

I'm posting again about running. I can't help it.

I have bad running news and good running news.

The bad running news is I will not be participating in the Indianapolis Marathon like I had previously planned. I will, however, run the Chicago Half. The good news is, however, that I will not be running in Indy but only because I was recruited by Judson U to run cross country. I actually got cleared to run road races while on the team as long as they don't coincide with meets or training performance, but I think that because the marathon requires a much larger mile base of training than regular CC training, I chose not to go compete in the Indianapolis Marathon in October. It was a tough decision, but I really think I made the right one. I remember telling my mom the other day that my ultimate goal in my running career would be to compete on my college team. There will always be marathons, but I won't always have the opportunity to compete at Judson. The really awesome thing about JU's team is that it's a newer team, so there are some people who are joining who have no long distance running experience whatsoever. I guess that's what I was the most worried about, was that all the other runners would be kicking my butt...and there's a good chance they still might, but I feel a lot better after getting the summer work-out plan. I trained heavier while training for the 13.1 I ran a couple of weekends ago than I will be training this summer even in the heaviest part of the training. The only difference in training is that the miles per week are more evenly dispersed in the days than my miles I logged during half training. I'm really excited! I want to train super hard this summer so that nobody can even question my lack of experience on a team. This is going to be a good year. :)

The only other weird thing that I'm not used to about summer training is that it's all in minutes rather than in miles. So until July 7th, our goal is to run 5 days a week at 60 minutes a day. There's a big pond about .36 miles away from my house (have I mentioned that I now know pretty much all of the distances from my house to ever single place in the western suburbs.), so I usually run to the pond as a warm up and then run around the pond (which is about .82 of a mile around) until I get to super close to 60 minutes, and then I run back at my goal race pace for the 5K I'm running next weekend (so about at a 7:50 to 8:00 minute pace). The pond is right by a school and a playground, so there's always lots of people walking around it. There's also a lot of wildlife so I really enjoy observing all the cool birds and stuff as I'm running around. I usually have to run around like 7 or 8 times before I can stop but I like it. There's a good number of hills and stuff, too, so I feel like as far as a training course, it's a pretty good one.
So yesterday, I head out at around 6:30ish, water bottle in hand, hide my water bottle in the bushes somewhere along the lake (so that when I loop back around I can grab a sip of it) and start trudging along. I circle the pond about twice when I see this lady power walking. I smile and she smiles back. I circle her a few more times before she says something to me. "You're doing great!" she says. Every time I pass her, she says something new. So yay! haha. I made a friend! (kind of)
Anyway, this other little Asian couple were also power walking (there are a lot of power walkers that walk around the pond) and after I had looped past them a couple of times, the wife looks at me and says "Wow...you fast". I smiled and said thanks. My favorite part about running is when some little smart alek kid decides to make some remark. A lot of times I'll hear "Run Forest, run!!". Yesterday, one kid on the playground said "Go girl! Go!!" and another told me to run faster. Then I approached this mom and her daughter. The little girl must've been like 5. Once she hears my footsteps, she looks behind her, gets this HUGE smile on her face, and starts "racing" me. It was pretty cute.

So yes. I decided that I like running on the pond path by my house. It's fun. Especially when I get to race little kids. haha