Crazylegs Classic…
I finished the Crazylegs Classic last Saturday in 58:54, a minute or so ahead of my target time of 60:00.
For people who “are runners”, this is no big deal. For me, this is a milestone. Before this year’s Crazylegs Classic, I had never run in any kind of organized run or walk. Zip. Zilch. Nada. That was for, you know, those cross country and track and runner type people. I was busy doing cool computer stuff, sloshing down Mountain Dew and eating healthy things like Twinkies. Now, I can not only run five miles at a time, I can do it without the need for medical assistance. (In fact, I run five miles three times a week.)
Now, I’ll admit the fact that I knew there was free beer waiting for me at Camp Randall. And that Bud Light tasted pretty damn good. But that wasn’t my main motivation for running the race.
If you’re one of the three or so people who actually follow my blog, you know I’ve been working on losing weight and getting in shape. At a certain point, you have to do something to test yourself. I’ve been running for an hour at a time on a treadmill at the Y, but running outside with other people on real streets and hills is a different thing when you haven’t done it before. You ask yourself, “Self, can I say I’m in good shape now?” And so you pay your money and do things like run the Crazylegs Classic.
And when you finish under your goal time, knowing you trained hard, and ran up all the hills instead of walking, and just plain kept going and got it done… that’s when you can say “Self, you’re in a whole lot better shape than you used to be.”
And when you hear yourself saying “I bet I can run it faster next year…”, that’s when you know you’ve made a change and stuck with it, and it’s going to be permanent.
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