This past weekend I ran a 5K here in KC with my friend Kerri, this experience brought out the reasons why I have so much fun with running now. Running and exercise provides you with an awesome opportunity to catch up with great people and get to know so many more. Kerri and I were old college friends, she is married to another great friend of mine from Drury Mike. I am unlike many runners I love to chat while I am on the course, I find it takes my mind off the actual running. On Saturday I had a blast talking to Kerri during the race and hearing that she used to dislike running but that she has found that recently she really enjoys it and looks forward to running more races to come. I think we may have even convinced Mike to join us on my favorite race every year the St. Patty's Day 4 miler. The true joy though was seeing the excitement on Kerri, Mike, and their children Audrey and Mike's faces when Kerri crossed the line and set her new personal record that morning. Congrats Kerri you made that a very fun race for me! I can't wait for the next one.
A second joy with running is the fact that every race has a post race celebration. This race was especially fun as it was Mizzou versus the dreaded Jayhawks. In the post race celebration the glorious news was announced that to no surprise more Mizzou fans showed up and raced. The post race also provided fun as the bar sponsoring the race provided me with two complimentary Bloody Mary's, that is a fun treat for putting in the miles. The post race celebrations always provide an opportunity to talk to other competitors and swap stories on how the race went for them, many times these can be very interesting or inspirational stories which are great to hear.
The name of this post was the joys and the pains, so there was a second part to this weeks blog "pain". Pain can refer to many things, for me this week it meant exhaustion. This was my craziest and most intense week of training yet, and for some unknown reason I forgot my iPod so it was just me, my mind and the open road. Just to give an idea of the week I put in Monday I ran 4.5 miles and did my boot camp class, Tuesday night I put in a ten miler, Wednesday I got up early and spun, Thursday and Friday I took some well needed rest, Saturday I competed in the 5K in the morning but felt guilty as that is normally my long run day so I put in a 1700 meter swim that afternoon just to get the guilt off of my conscious, and finally Sunday I did a 14 mile run. I am actually exhausted just writing about that. In the end when the destination is reached the joy and the pain will all be worth it.
Have a great week, live life hard it is short!
Ryan...you are too sweet!!! I had so much running with you!!! Can't wait until our next one!!!
ReplyDelete-Kerri