Second Time Around--Better than the First Time

I'm a totally novice run. I ran track for part of one season back in my sophomore year of high school (20+ years ago), but we only had a boys team, so me and a few other girls were training with the boys waiting for the state finals where we could actually compete against others teenagers with ovaries.

My time never came, as I injured my knee about halfway through the season and had to drop out.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I have absolutely no clue about running, a sport I pretty much picked up on a whim back in June out of physical boredom while visiting my folks in Connecticut. I ran one 5K in July and promptly stopped running until early September--when I had this crazy idea that I should train to run a half marathon.

Having no clue about running, let alone training, I have spent the past couple of weeks feeling dubious that I would ever make any progress. That is, until today.

Earlier this morning, my running partner Katherine and I returned to Discovery Park for a 4 mile run around the mildly hilly Loop Trail. Well, the Loop Trail itself is only about 3 miles, but we added on a couple of short side-trail detours plus ran a bit more than one lap so that we hit our 4-mile target.

Last week we hit 4 miles at exactly 40 minutes. And today, despite Katherine's lack of caffeine and my lack of sleep (probably less than 4 hours), we nailed the same run in 38 minutes without even attempting to increase our pace. The second time around was far more pleasant and I was not haunted by a recurring urge to just stop.

I am beginning to suspect that this training thing may actually work after all!