Run Like a Girl...Wherever You Are

Last summer Bear bought me some cool sneakers. He said that he bought them because I had started losing weight and he wanted to support my efforts (he always does thoughtful things like this!). I told him thank you and never put them on...that is until this spring.

This spring, I took another look at those cool sneakers and I am sooo glad that Bear bought them for me. Bear bought me a pair of Nike Air Max 180 plus track sneakers. These sneakers allow you to listen to music on your ipod while the sensor in the sneaker tracks your distance, time, pace, and calories burned on your walk/run. THIS IS THE BEST MOTIVATOR!

So, this spring I started walking with my Nike plus system and felt a sense of accomplishment not only in the results I began seeing in my body, but in knowing that I was increasing my distance, time, and pace with each walk. I even ran a couple of times. When I returned from my workout, I was able to sync my ipod and my stats went directly to Nikeplus.com. Each walk/run is recorded, graphed, and averaged to show your growth. Nikeplus.com not only keeps track of your workouts, but it also sets up training programs to meet your needs, it keeps track of your goals, it has a chat board, and sends out email about Nike events.

Well, they sent me an email about a half marathon in Cali on October 19th that will benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I signed up right away for the Run Like a Girl Wherever You Are half marathon. I'm not going to run it in California, because I don't have to. Anyone, anywhere in the world, who registers for the event, runs with Nike+ and logs 13.1 miles on nikeplus.com on October 19th, 2008 is a finisher of the Nike+ Women’s Half Marathon. Every participant will receive a t-shirt and a key chain designed by Tiffany & Co.

Isn't that great?! So, I've begun training to complete the half marathon. Bear was extremely excited about the new challenge I've set for myself. I am taking things slowly right now. A group of us from work are walking together and hopefully we'll be running together on October 19, 2008. We even have a co-worker running in Cape Cod where she is spending her summer. Every weekend we pick one day to walk together. This is our "me" time where we work on our spirits and our bodies in the company of friends. Our goal this weekend is to walk around 6 or 6.5 miles at a decent pace. Each week we will add a mile and/or a challenge to increase our pace or add a mile of running to our workout. The Nikeplus sneakers are helping us keep track of our runs. We chat during the week about our successes. We encourage each other. We are motivated!

Join us on October 19th if you'd like. We'd love to have more people run like a girl...wherever you are! (THANK YOU BEAR!)