It's official

I'll finally call myself a runner now. Was it the 10 miles I ran during training a few weeks ago that pushed me over the edge? Was it the 10K race I ran last weekend? Nope, though those things still feel good.

Today at the airport, I bought Runners World magazine. It's really a pretty good magazine, by the way, and their website is really good. The cover story was all about beginners to running. And, they refer to themselves as RW, which is me! It's kismet.

It's official. I'm a runner.

Ode to my first pair of running shoes

Alas, the time has come for you to retire, dear running shoes. You were the first pair I ever purchased specifically for running. How have I loved you? Let me count the ways:

• You are silver and sassy and that makes a girl think that anything is possible.
• You are the LIVESTRONG brand from Nike and therefore my purchase donated money to cancer research. You know I'm always a sucker for a good cause.
  
• You introduced me to my second running-related love - my NikePlus. It's so very clever of you to get me hooked on your brand like that. And it worked. Oh, how it worked.
• I never once had sore feet or blisters and that's pretty remarkable.
  
• You took me so much farther than I ever thought possible. 268 miles farther, to be exact. I never thought I'd be the person who ran more than about two miles and only then it was because it was required for the volleyball team my senior year in high school.

So thank you, first pair of running shoes. You have shown me that I can do things I never thought I could.

NikePlus rocks

I am completely addicted to my NikePlus thing. I use the wristband because my trusty iPod mini doesn't officially sync up with it. I actually like my setup a little better anyway. So the sensor goes in my shoe and I keep the wristband on while I'm running.





It keeps track of my distance, pace and time while I'm running. When I get home, I pop it in to the USB port on the computer and it loads my runs to the website. The website kicks butt too. It keeps track of all of my runs and shows how my pace varied throughout the run in a graph like the one above. (You can see that I'm not so great at keeping a steady pace but that's okay since my goal is to cross the finish line with my legs still moving.) The graph above is my run from today.

So if you run or walk, you should seriously check NikePlus out.

PS - Did you see on the graph above that I ran for 50 minutes?? I'm very close to calling myself a runner.