St. Jude's Heroes

Paige Boughan's Page

Visit my fundraising page (click the link above) for some more information about St. Jude's hospital.

Day Two and Hurting

I've always struggled with identifying myself as a runner.  Who is a runner?  How far do you have to run or fast do you have to run to qualify as a "real" runner?  Well, I'm coming to terms with the fact I was a runner... but am no longer.

I haven't been running since sometime in the fall.  And haven't been running regularly since probably last summer.  So all you non-runners, or runners who have also been taking a long winter break, can relate to how I feel on day two on the treadmill.

Muscles are very cranky with me, and Tylenol is probably a must before bedtime at least for a few more days... every 5 minutes on the treadmill I'm battling myself to keep going for 5 more.  

And at this point I'm already thinking about running for 4, 5, maybe even 6 hours.... CONSECUTIVELY.... seems DAUNTING.

But, like my Mom always told me:  Like the Nike commercial says Paige-ee, Just Do It.

So even though I won't look as awesome as the people in the Nike commercials, I'll just keep doing it. 

How I got this far...

Okay, well "they" say the best motivation for running a marathon is to register for a marathon.  And my particular "they" was actually my great friend and former college roommate, Kristen Wilson.  She has one marathon under her belt already (you are awesome, friend!!) and she signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon in DC this October. 

Well, let me back up a little bit- I've been toying with the idea of running a half marathon for a while- however, committing to any race is where I usually fall short.  But alas, I was determined to finally sign up for a half, because a full would be CRAZY.  So I decided I would tentatively commit to running a half, and ordered myself a book to help motivate me to actually register... oh yeah, and to train...

So I started reading Dawn Dais's, "The Non-Runner's Marathon Guide for Women: Get Off Your Butt and On With Your Training".  This is a humorous guide written by someone I can actually relate to- she LOVES watching tv, she loves finding a close parking spot, and she was also scared of dying in the process of training for her marathon.  The book encourages readers to journal their own marathon running efforts, much like she did.  And since I think it's likely that once I complete this marathon, I may never want to take one on again, I figured it'd be a good idea to follow suite and blog my journey because I rarely take on feats of this magnitude, and like I said, doubt I will after this:)

So now that I'm almost finished with the book, and saw that Kristen signed up for her second marathon, I decided- screw a half!!  I'm going to push myself to impossible limits, and I figured a short lapse in reality like this only comes to me every so often, so I should go with it and REGISTER!

Well, this is where my actual marathon journey really began I suppose- without registration, there is no journey... and would you believe that I went to the Marine Corps Marathon website to register, to see that it sold out- in just over two days of being open... this means that almost 30,000 people gobbled up the online registration spots in about 48 hours... these are spots that seal your fate of running 26.2 miles- I can't get past this- if it was sold out and I was trying to register for a free Macbook, yes, maybe shock wouldn't be my reaction... but, come on people!  

However, this was a good thing- because I found out, through some reading that I was still able to register, if I agreed to fundraise for a charity.  And so I found St. Jude's.  

So maybe it's all meant to happen this way... hopefully this is a sign I'm meant to finish my journey of completing 26.2.    I definitely want one of the 26.2 bumper stickers on my car November 1st if this all really works out for me!  Just had to throw that out there.