Much better day!

OK... so today, in light of my NOT so good day with the TNT group yesterday, I decided to do the full 6 mile trail by myself. MUCH better. I need to be by myself to avoid the pressure of trying to keep up with these other incredible athletes! So I did 6 miles of alternating running 3/4 mile and walking 1/4 mile. The 1st 2 miles were rough until I decided to ditch the GPS watch (actually the battery died in the middle of the 2nd mile...didn't make a conscious decision to "ditch" it....didn't have a choice). So it became much easier when I quit trying to concentrate so hard on keeping a certain pace...I just ran...by the 4th mile I learned that relaxing my hands, arms, and shoulders (had white knuckle fists for the 1st 3 miles) made it even easier yet. I really felt like I found my groove so to speak. Don't get me wrong...still had to stop and catch my breath after 3/4 miles but I at least didn't feel like I was going to pass out or drop a lung! I was REALLY having doubts yesterday about whether I was going to be able to accomplish this and today gave me hope!

THEN, I came home to find that my Aunt and Uncle (my Dad's side) sent in my very first donation!....an incredibly generous donation! This is SO motivating! My friend Traci (this is her 2nd marathon) decided to run with the TNT group again this time around and she told me that 1 of the main reasons she decided this was because of how motivating it is when the donations start to role in....I get it now! I mean I CANT quit now!!! That was the main reason I decided to start this blog. It's incredibly motivating to get all these email responses! The cat's out of the bag....so there's no turning back now!!

On another note...My 1st goal....I've signed up to participate in the Race for a Cure on June 16th with a couple friends. It's a 5K. I figured it would be a good way to see how this all works...being new to all this is intimidating. So my first goal is to be able to run the entire 5K without walking rests. It's just a little over 3 miles and I have 3 weeks to get there.

So I'm not bringing my GPS to anymore training runs....being my first marathon, I'm not concerned at this point in beating any times (as if that were even possible) I'm just going to stay focused on finishing the darn thing!