Running

This morning, I did a three-mile run (interspersed with walking, as necessary) in 37 minutes. I'm pretty happy about that. In March, my three-mile time was 41 minutes. So I'm improving, which makes me feel good. I'm also able to run for longer distances - if I'm careful and I pace myself, I can run a half-mile without stopping to walk. Pacing myself is difficult though, because when I run, I want to run fast. Otherwise, what's the point of running? I also find it challenging to do short bouts of sprinting during my runs; it helps maintain variety and allows me to push myself.

Next weekend I'm running my first 5k here in Reno. I'm running another 5k in July in Santa Cruz, then a 10k two weeks later in Pennsylvania, then another 10k in August in Boulder. You'll notice that each race is in a different state...I didn't plan that deliberately, that's just how it worked out with my travel/moving plans this summer. I'll be in California for a meditation course beginning on June 15, then I'm heading over to my mother-in-law's house in Santa Cruz, where Sean will meet me and we'll attend a friend's wedding. After that, I'm going to PA for my ten-year high school reunion, which seems hard to believe. And once I get home from that, we'll be packing up and moving at the end of July. Our move-in date for our place in Boulder is August 2, so I'll have a couple of weeks to get settled before the second 10k.

I didn't start running until a few months ago. I decided that running would be a challenge for me, and I'm looking forward to racing this summer. I'm not quite at the point where I consider myself a "real" runner, although I suppose that anyone who runs regularly is a real runner, even if they can't run very far without stopping to walk. But I still feel kind of silly...like all the other people who are running will look at me and be able to tell that I'm not a real runner. I realize that I'm just being self-conscious, and that most of the time, those people are far more worried about how they look to me than about how I look to them.

What, in your opinion, does a "real" runner look like? Is it anyone who's running? Do you consider yourself a real runner, and how long did it take you before you started to think of yourself as one? Or is it more like being a grown-up, where you know you are one even though you don't feel like one?