Things you didn't know about Runner Me

HAD to do this from Another Mother Runner!

1.        Best Run Ever:  Hmmm…I’ve had lots of good runs, a fair amount of bad ones…but the BEST one?  I think my FAVORITE was the first time I ran the Boilermaker 15K in Utica, NY.  It cemented my relationship with running.  I see that moment of success (I finished!  I didn’t die!  I set a goal and worked for it!) as the turning point for me, from running as part of working out, to truly becoming a runner. 

2.       3 Words that Describe my Running:  Compulsive, Happy, Free

3.       My go-to Running Outfit:  Gotta have a BondiBand in my hair (too short for a pony, too long for nothing) <3 my running skirts, and a bright top so everyone can see me (I know more than one person who has been hit by a car so…) and in that vein: my RoadID bracelet…it’s always on my wrist.  I am also having a love affair with my 3 pairs of ProCompression marathon socks. 

4.       Quirky habit while running: I count steps to 100, then back down then by twos, then down then by threes then down…when I forget where I am in my math, I’ve usually made it past any mental road blocks that I put up!  Sometimes I find myself chanting in a sing-song…and I never know what the phrase will be.  One race it was “I eat hills for breakfast, oh I eat hills for breakfast, yes, I eat hills for breakfast , because they taste really great!”  Another run it was “Laundry, dishes, floors, they suck. “ over and over again (I obviously was out for a run and needed to be home doing chores…but it wasn’t a great run, but it was better than cleaning!)

5.       Morning, Midday, Evening?  Well, in the summer, morning.  In the fall and spring, afternoon (I squeeze in a few miles between work and getting my kids at the sitters) and winter will be new for me, as I just got a treadmill this past one.  I think probably morning there. 

6.       I won’t run outside when it’s…  already raining.  I don’t like to head out in the rain, but if it starts while I’m out there I welcome it and even love it.  But for some reason, going from inside into it is awful for me.  I also haven’t run in the snow/ice before, but that’s more logistical than anything.  The roads are windy with no shoulder and we get banks that are 6+ feet out here so…dangerous!

7.       Worst injury: Knock on wood, I’ve not had too many.  When I first started running, I stepped in a pot hole and re-sprained my foot (the arch through to the top).  I had sprained it originally when my oldest son was a baby and I was wearing heels, carrying him in his car seat to the car, down the stairs.  I saved the baby and car seat, and fell off my heels and the stairs.  I ended up seeing a podiatrist, and had to keep it elevated and wrapped and he chastised me for trying to “walk it out.”  He warned that I was literally a week away from needing cortisone shots in my foot, and that freaks me out!   I am always careful on heels now, and I’ve given up being fashionable right now until my fall races are over…just in case!

8.       I felt most like a bad-ass mother runner when I:  Was up all night with a puking kid, got up and ran a 10k race, then came home to take care of the other kid who was sick too.  (DH was super helpful in making that happen too…if I were a single parent I definitely wouldn’t have pulled that off without guilt!)

9.       Next Race is:  My First Half Marathon!  Tomorrow Morning!!!  The Delta Lake Half, in Rome, NY!!  AAAAHHHHH!  So nervous and excited and happy!

10.   Potential Running goal for 2013:  This year’s New Year’s resolution was to do a race a month for the year, but I didn’t start until March (I had no base, so it would have been a baaaaad idea to run earlier!), so I have to finish that out, and I think I will do it again.  I am eyeing a tri…but I don’t know how to swim for real yet…and I don’t have a bike…so it might not be till 2014! J