The Jerkins: What a difference a year makes

Allie sent me this pic the other day.

It was taken this time last year as we began our "serious" running venture. I've run for the past 3 years, but it wasn't until this time last year that allie and I began working out together and from there it led to a passion to pursue training at a different level.

Bigger goals.

Faster times.

This was the first 5k we ran together at the beginning of our training. We were dying! And still had terrible time. My trainer says someone my age should never be running more than a 10 min mile pace. Well, thankfully we've come along way in a year! Our 5k now is a/r 28 minutes.

Allie posted this on her blog about our run the other day. I had to blog about it just so I could remember how hilarious this experience was! Maybe you just had to be there... but man are we chickens!

Thursday, Aug 23, 2012

"Today's run was really good overall. We were spooked 2 separate times by barking dogs that we were convinced were out to attack us!!! It was quite hilarious when we realized they didn't want to eat us but in the moment, it was quite scary! The first dog encounter was me spotting 2 dogs chasing each other a few houses away. I wanted her to be aware of the possible danger as well so I said - hey, there are 2 dogs running up there. She misunderstood me and thought I said 2 dogs were running for us. She screams and in turn I start screaming. We quickly realize the misunderstanding and die laughing. Not 5 minutes later a dog that must have been sleeping on the porch starts barking and scares the mess out of us! We both scream and do the scared dance! Oh goodness, we are crazy. Its a good thing in our flailing around we didn't spray each other with pepper spray! (yes we both carry pepper spray!) We were quite the site! Needless to say all the excitement slowed down our first mile significantly. The following 2 miles, however, were much faster. Maybe subconsciously we thought if we ran faster, the dogs couldn't catch us. LOL.

Mile 1 - 10:43

Mile 2 - 8:47

Mile 3 - 8:53

Total distance 3.15

Time 29:39"

So... scary dogs and all we have dramatically improved our pace from over an 11 minute mile to mostly 8:30-10:00 min pace. Well, Jason for the most part we are adhering to your advice... except when we get spooked by vicious dogs and it takes a mile to recover from it!

This past Saturday for our long run, it was time to embark on: 7 miles. That just sounds daunting. And feels it at times! But we did it... in the rain!

Mile 1 - 9:46

Mile 2 - 9:46

Mile 3 - 9:42

Mile 4 - 10:12

Mile 5 - 10:11

Mile 6 - 9:47

Mile 7 - 9:43

Total distance - 7.01

Time - 1:09:12