Running

And my last little bit of news--I ran an 8k! Patrick and I ran the Homer's Classic in Silverton the weekend before last. He finished in a little under 37 minutes (wow!), and I finished in a little under 54 minutes. I was aiming to finish in about an hour, so I was happy with my time. And I was extra happy that I ran the whole thing without stopping!

After we finished the Couch to 5k program, we switched to the One Hour Runner plan. Both programs worked great for us. Hard to believe that we're running an hour every Sunday without much difficulty when I couldn't run a block back in March. I plan on continuing to run three times a week for as long as possible (I'm worried winter might derail me). I don't have any plans to do a marathon or anything; for now I'm happy with the occasional 5k or 8k. Maybe a 10k eventually...

A couple things have been important in helping me stick with running: (1) having a plan to follow, (2) having somebody to run with (the silent peer pressure is a great motivator), and (3) Shot Bloks. For the first month or two that we ran, I insisted on running first thing in the morning without eating anything, and I'd run out of energy pretty quickly. Patrick finally convinced me to try Shot Bloks, and they totally helped me keep up my energy for the whole run. It's pretty obvious in retrospect, but it took me a while to figure it out.

So yeah, I ran the 8k, and it went really well! It was the most enjoyable organized run I've done so far, probably because the route was flat and I was able to listen to music on my iPod. The scenery was nice too. I think I ran harder than I usually do, because I was pretty tired by the end. Patrick ran at his own speed, and he high-fived me when our paths crossed at the turn-around point. That was fun :) Since he finished way before me, he was able to cheer me on at the finish line. After downing a cup of water, I had some yummy watermelon and Mexican pastries. Here I am after the run (those aren't the shoes I ran in). I think the stripey socks definitely made me run faster.

We stuck around after the run for the Davenport Days parade. It was a pretty standard parade; lots of candy was thrown. And then we stopped at the Silverton farmers' market for lunch (burritos!) and then checked out the arts and crafts vendors and food carts at the festival. What we were really looking forward to were the couch races, but after walking all over looking for them, we realized that they weren't until the following day. Bummer!

After that sad realization, we headed back to our car, stopping along the way to buy some pink mini cupcakes from a cute little girl. We almost bought a cool fisticuffs whirligig at a local antique store, but we didn't want to venture into lawn ornament territory. That's a slippery slope! (But I still kind of wish we'd gotten it)

So, that's it on the running front. Our next organized run is the Portland Marathon 5-miler. Tree will be in town to run the actual marathon, so it will be fun to be able to sort-of participate with her!