What Runner’s High?

This might be the truest statement ever tweeted.

Illustrated Tweet Of The Day courtesy of Hello Giggles

Cinco de Mayo, Kentucky Derby Countown

I am less than a fortnight away from my second — yes, SECOND — 5K. Me, the person who swore she would never run unless it meant escaping from certain death or achieving face-to-face interaction with Ryan Gosling.

Team “I Run For Dessert” is hitting up Music City for the greatest Cinco de Mayo 5K run EVER. I am so stoked.

“Why are you so excited today, Emily, when you have barely mentioned this race over the last several weeks?”, you might ask.

Well, this renewed vigor stems from the fact that Julie and I completed a full three-mile run this morning at the gym. And we only walked ONE LAP. This is earth shattering. Since completing the initial 5K on March 17, we have not neared the three-mile mark.

Today was a bit different because my iPod’s battery died so we didn’t use the GPS/MPH tracker at all; instead, we tracked our progress the old-fashioned way — counting laps around the 1/8-mile track. We didn’t even watch the clock. It wasn’t our fastest run, by any means, but we finished, which means so much more!

Gaining Speed At What Cost?

Following our first 5K on March 17, Julie and I took a few days off from running. When we began again, we decided to concentrate on improving our speed prior to the Cinco de Mayo 5K we are running in Nashville.

That has been the focus in the weeks since then, and since I haven’t updated my loyal followers in a while, I thought today would be a great day for it.

I’m proud to say we have shaved nearly two minutes off our time for the mile, going from over 11 minutes per mile, to around 9.5 minutes per mile, fairly consistently. In talking to other runners who are of similar build to us (short), we are feeling pretty good about that speed.

Q&A: Episode One

A week or so ago I asked for questions from my readers (all four of you) and promised answers from the experts. For this first episode of I Run for Dessert Q&A, I spoke with a personal trainer at Fitness Plus in Cape Girardeau. He answered a great question submitted by Michael.

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions. I hope to feature more answers from the experts soon.

Got Questions? Get Answers!

Do you have questions about running? If you just started a running program or are doing it regularly, I bet there are things you are wondering about. I’ll be taking your questions and getting answers from the experts for a post. Ask me anything you’ve ever wanted to know about running!