What it’s All About

Hey!  I’m Kate.  Some of you might know me from Runner’s World…I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and create a blog about my running!

For starters, I just made a pretty important decision about where my running is going to take me.  You see, I ran track and field while I was at Bates College, but now that I am transferring to William and Mary…well, going from Division III to Division I is a big jump.  The coach, when I met with her last week, told me that I’d be the slowest girl on the team.

Basically, if I ran for WM, I’d be busting my ass all the time, I’d be overtrained, not getting enough sleep, and as a result, I’d be too irritable to be a good friend, too tired to run well, and….also too tired to do well in school!  And, not to sound pedantic, but my dream is to be a cardio-thoracic surgeon.  I want to go to an Ivy League medical school, so, obviously…my grades are SO SO important to me.  Running is important to me to, but….

…I thought about the reasons I wanted to run for WM.  I came up only with the “glory” and “prestige” associated with being able to say “I am a Division I Collegiate Athlete”.  And yes, I love to race…but lately I’ve been getting the feeling that maybe 5ks and 10ks aren’t my thing.  I’ve only been competing for a year, but I’ve never broken 19:30 or 42:00 (respectively).  And I’ve noticed that the longer my run, the happier I am.  Maybe I am meant to run longer races…10-milers, half marathons, and marathons.  (If I didn’t suck at swimming so bad, maybe I’d do a tri…)

Fortunately, William and Mary also has a Running Club.  It’s Co-Ed, so I’d get to run with girls AND guys.  It lets you be the type of runner YOU want-there are social runners, serious competitive runners, and every gradient inbetween.  You work running into your life the way you want it to…instead of the team BEING your life.  And, get this…they train for and run marathons together!  It sounds perfect for me: training, motivation, new friends, and none of the stress and frustration that comes with being the slowest girl on a varsity team.

So.  Yesterday I decided to see how long I could run for.  The longest I’d ever done before was 9 miles-I wanted to do a distance PR, so I was going for at least 10.  I did 11.25 miles in 82 minutes!  I was stunned with myself.  Today I took a complete rest day (though it was crazy-work for six hours, home for a snack and a quick shower, then off for an evening out with my boyfriend), because I haven’t had one in a week!  Tomorrow I am going to start off light-I’ll get to about 35-40mpw (I’ve been doing more, but I’ve also felt very cranky and tired all the time…might be a sign of overtraining).  I am going to FOCUS on endurance and mileage, but of course I will throw a bit of speedwork in there as well as some tune-up road races here and there (I’m going to Paris next month….maybe a foreign race? lol).

So here we go! Tomorrow starts fresh with a new direction in my running.