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August 14, 2004
A Little Bit of History
Hi there. I thought that I would start with a little bit about myself. I'm a 27 year old single female (gosh, it sounds like the start of a personal ad). I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I've been running off and on since I was 14. I ran cross country and track in high school, but I didn't care too much about how I did. As long as I was on varsity, I was happy. I also swam competitively in high school. I ran one year of D3 cross country and absolutely hated the program. My teammates were not very nice and I didn't really get along with the coach. I swam all four years I was in college and would run a little bit in the off season to stay in some kind of shape.
After I graduated from college I was a gym rat for almost a year. I did the elliptical machine and the stairclimber and ran a little bit. I went on vacation to London and when I came back there was an ad in the newspaper that the local half-marathon was that Sunday. I decided that even though I was not in any kind of shape to run that distance I was going to do it. I started to run more seriously later that spring when I was 23.
Since then I started to care about my running. Like many of the other bloggers here, my eventual goal is to qualify for the Olympic Trials in the marathon. Unlike most of you, I do not have any plans to run another marathon this fall. In fact, I don't want to run one again until the fall of 2006. I'm trying to take my time and work on getting stronger and faster, gradually. Hence my title, The Long Run.
I have done three marathons with three distinctly different feelings upon completion. One was great, one I was lucky to finish, and the third made me say that I've been there and done that, but I don't want to do it again. My PRs at other distances indicate that I am capable of coming close to the trials. I would like to drop some time off all of them so far, but I've run 17:53 for 5K, 29:57 for 5 miles, 37:49 for 10K, 61:45 for 10 miles, and 1:21:40 for 1/2 marathon. My marathon times leave something to be desired, but I'm still learning about the race.
Posted by Blondie at August 14, 2004 12:02 PM
Comments
Welcome to the blogging community. I noticed that you live near Philadelphia. I just wanted to say hi because my wife and I lived in Philadelphia for 6 years and loved it! I was a graduate student at Penn and Temple, and we lived in Jenkintown, University City and Center City. We're now back in Dallas but talk often about moving back to Philadelphia.
Good luck with your training and blogging!
Posted by: Marshall at August 28, 2004 11:12 AM