Where to begin??

Well I am new to the blogging, but have greatly enjoyed reading the RunnersWorld blog and figure I should start documenting my stories and adventures.

What is my story? Well, I started running in January 2006 after losing 50 pounds and recognizing that I wanted to do something healthy to honor that. I "ran" my first 5K in April 2006. I believe my finishing time was around 52 minutes. I was so elated to finish. It was such a huge accomplish for me. I have never been athletic, played softball when I was 6 & 7 years old, but after that I became much more of the musician. I played the piano through elementary school and then played the flute throughout junior high and high school. So..here I am in my 30s deciding that I need to find my inner athlete. I enjoyed the atmosphere and acceptance of the running community when I did my first 5K, and the encouragement of the super-speedies really motivated to keep at it. So I kinda trotted along, did some training on the treadmill and kind meandered my way. After completing a 5K in March 2007, I met up with some women who were going to put on a women's running camp during the summer months at 5:45 in the morning, 3 days a week. I figured why not...had to do something to change it up...plus although running should be fairly simple one foot in front of the other...I couldn't get over the threshold.
So in June 2007, i met some phenomenal ladies, who I still adore and did my first 5K in July 2007 in sub-40. I was so excited, but thought I was going to puke at the same time. Then a bunch of us decided to do the Kansas City Zoo Run in September 2007, which is a 4 mile run. In the training for the zoo run, I was talked in to attempting the Kansas City half marathon in October. The KC Zoo run is a total blast, I recommend it for anyone in the KC area during September. Continued my training with my group of females for the KC half and did indeed complete the course. The week following the KC half I did the Turkey Trot a 5K on a cross country course. I wound up really injuring my right achilles, my whole ankle stayed swollen for 10 weeks.

In March 2008, I decide to try to get back on the horse so to speak. It has been quite a challenge for me to lace up the shoes again, both physically and mentally. I have really struggled to get in a good place mentally to accomplish the running feats I have planned in my head. After my move to Tulsa in July 2008, i sucked it up one Tuesday evening and decided to show up to the RunnersWorld group and have been consistently running 3 days a week since.

So...what now?? Keep on running or jogging as the case may be. I have finally hit that stride where I have some self-confidence that I can indeed complete the miles. Now it's time for me to be consistent and be confident.