Pride...

Week one is officially completed!!

It's kind of been a long week, but so has the last year. Last weekend was the Race for the Cure here in St. Louis. This was my second year "running" it. With over 60,000 people on the race course, it's really kind of hard to actually run. But, it's still my favorite race. There's something about seeing the pink survivor shirts and the "celebration of/memory of" bibs that just gives me goosebumps and makes me want to cry.

I've registered for another race... the nike human race in Chicago on August 31! I have mixed fillings about it actually. This will be my first race that I've done by myself. And, my brother, who lives in Chicago, informed me that I'll have to get a hotel room since their place is so small! Yes, I agree, that's ridiculous!!! I believe I've conned my mom into going up with me, but unless she goes, I probably won't end up going up. I just can't afford a hotel room in Chicago; let alone a hotel room in Chicago on a holiday weekend. Plus, I have to pick up my race packet the weekend before... unless I can get someone to do that I won't be participating anyways. Although, the race ends up being placed just about perfectly in my training schedule. Oh! I want to do it so badly... there's supposed to be some 15,000 people entered in Chicago. That day there are 24 other races of the same distance going on around the world.

In other running news, I GOT NEW SHOES!!! I've finally been fitted for running shoes and took them for a spin tonight. So far, so good! It was good to find out the shoes I was wearing weren't completely bad for me, but they recommended a different pair. Tonight I ran 3 miles! I stopped once to tie my shoe (doesn't count) and two other times (yet, for very short periods of time). To purchase said shoes I had to dip into my emergency funds, but figured I'd rather spend $100 on the shoes than another $1,000 on an emergency room visit. I'm calling it preventative emergency. I've also figured out darkness is a great motivator to run faster. I got up around 4:30 this morning to open and once I got off, I absolutely had to take a nap. By the time I woke up, I had to choose between running and going to church. Even though I'm going to church tomorrow night, after the Saturday night service a group of us go out to dinner or the like. I really need to be around people right now so I opted to forgo running by myself and head out to be with other humans. My stubbornness got a hold of me and I refused to not complete a training day. I headed out around 8:30 or so. Since it was getting darker and it's pride fest in my park, I ran my route backwards. By the time I made it to the final turn, I had to turn my music off because I was freaked out. I think it pace increased by a good 2 minutes though!

Gotta Run!
Katie