Why I Run, and a Contest!

I haven’t really made it clear on the site, so I’ll take the opportunity now. I run, a lot in fact.  Up until February of this year I couldn’t run a mile without feeling like I was going to die.  Something changed for me mentally in addition to the physical change of the weight loss. I had become addicted to challenging myself. I wanted to see what I could get away with to a degree, see how hard I could push myself before I broke.  This is where the running idea came from.  I wanted to become a runner, so I did.

I have always been awful at running, part due to being overweight, the other due to having asthma, I used it as an excuse to never really push myself.  But like I said I had this new addiction to challenges, first up was to train for a 5k, I gave myself 3 months to do this. To make it extra official I even signed up for a 5K before I even started running. Having this on my calendar was the ultimate motivation, I didnt want to waste the $50 I put down to sign up, nor did I want to feel the shame of not following through with something I committed to. I ran on the treadmill as much as I could, since it was February it was pretty much always too cold to run outside.  At this time I was pushing myself hard to run 2 miles nonstop on the tread mill but I stuck with it and slowly progressed each week.  Next thing you know I was at the finish line with a medal hanging out with my sister who decided to run with me.

At that moment I thought I had reached the pinnacle of achievements, I had done it, I trained for and ran a 5k!  No one told me that with in a few hours I’d have an insatiable appetite for more!  I wanted to be out there running another 5k that day, I was ready for whatever the roads could put before my feet.  Thus is began my addiction to running.  It has now been 6 months since I started running, 2 weeks ago I ran my first half marathon, here is a picture of me look all exhausted crossing the finish line.

Then like I said at the beginning of this post I’ve got the BIG ONE coming the end of October.  Meaning if all goes according to plans I will have gone from not being able to run one mile to running 26.2 of them in a matter of 9 months.  I didn’t tell this story to brag, although I am really proud of myself, I am telling this to show you that it is possible to achieve your goals as long as you’re willing to work hard and give it your all, even if you’re awful at things at first stick with it and don’t accept anything less than exactly what you’ve set out to achieve.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way lets get to the fun part of the post! I’ve got all sorts of Tanka goodies to give away to you!  Why Tanka? Because they’re one of my favorite post run snacks to eat, see how I tied things together like that? haha I’ve already featured Tanka on the site before but I’ll reiterate that these buffalo meat snacks are so awesome and delicious.  They’ve got just enough sugar carbs and protein to feed those tired muscles.  Rest assured I’d never give anything away that I don’t fully endorse!  So yeah goodies to give away! I’ll keep it simple, I’ll just randomly select from people that comment on this post, let’s talk about inspiring things. Once I get enough comments I’ll contact people and send them their prizes!