A definite upside to running

On Friday, I went in for my wellness screening. I came out feeling better than I ever had at any of my previous screenings. My weight, body mass index, waist circumference, and body fat percentage were all within normal limits. That's a first. In the last year, my cholesterol went down 20 points and my bad/good cholesterol levels were great. Guess this running is paying off after all (even if I've still only lost a total of 3 pounds during this entire training experience - the body is a confusing, confusing entity and I don't ever think I'm going to figure out how it works).

The positive reinforcement couldn't come sooner ... running is becoming quite tedious, especially since we hit the 16 mile run (who knew training for a marathon would involve so much running). Our runs on Tuesday and Thursday are now five miles and we have to run 9 on Wednesdays (that goes up to 10 next week). Completing our long runs on the weekends actually have remained fun. It's just hard to come home from work and run for about 2 hours. We're not even eating dinner until around 9. That's just not good for anybody. However, we are in the home stretch. The marathon is four weeks away and we only have 3 long runs left (this weekend we run 14, next week is the big 20, then we go down to 12). That's what I keep telling myself.

Another reinforcer ... I learned that Blue Cross Blue Shield offers a program called Blue Rewards. You sign into their website, log your activity for points, and the points equal dollars (up to $250.00 in a calendar year). Because we've kept a good record of our running since April, I was able to go back in and record all of our running and races. So far, I've been awarded $75 in gift cards and I'm five dollars away from my next $50 gift card. It's like I'm getting paid to run. Well, until I realized that running 16 miles actually only equals 50 cents. Yeah, they had me fooled for a bit, but it still adds up and I love it. Strangely, it makes me want to run.

Bill Seymour Half-Marathon

September 4th was our one year wedding anniversary ... what better way to celebrate than to run our first half-marathon together (Bill Seymour Half-Marathon in Grand Island, Nebraska).

Hands down, it was the easiest (and best) race we've done yet. The weather was in the 60s, the course was completely flat (literally, you could see for miles out), water stations at every mile marker, amazing volunteers that cheered us along, we met another fellow runner and had great company for most of the run, spectators made us feel like we were saving the world, we finished in 2 hour and 20 minutes, and it was our anniversary - kind of hard not to be in the best mood on a wedding anniversary. It was surprisingly easy (okay, running from mile 9 to 10 felt a bit long) and made me fall in love with Nebraska.

Nebraska is the place to run.