Purple People Eaters

I told you about my new obsession right?  I am having a love affair with trail running and I hope we never part.

Let’s rewind to February 2011.  At this point I have never run more than 1 mile, in fact, I used to fake injuries in middle & high school so I didn’t have to run the requisite mile on the track for gym class.  I am not a runner, nor do I ever want to be.

Skip, stumble, crawl through years of weight training, crunches, miscellaneous On Demand TV workouts, baby having (x2) and couch sitting and I am bored.  I want to be inspired.  I want to test my limits and break out of my mold so when my neighbor in NC suggested that we go running, I jumped on it.  OK I didn’t exactly jump, per se, so much as fought and pronounced my inability to do aerobic exercise and I tried to back out using every excuse in the book but in the end I went for it.  We did a 2.8 mile flat running/walking loop and that was pretty much it.  I was hooked.

Fast forward to June, 2012.  We recently moved to VA, which is slightly more hilly than Cary, NC and South Florida.  I decided to take a hike around the trails at a nearby park and ended up running most of it.  It was only about 2 miles but it was so much fun and I felt like an action hero leaping over roots and rocks!  Later that week I tried to run the hills in our neighborhood and found myself counting each step, each corner, each hill throughout the entire 3.2 miles.  One word.  BORING.

I have definitely found a new passion which is a welcome addition to cooking and talking!

My run/walk yesterday down Poor Mountain, then back up again (3.75 miles total) showed me that I am not quite ready to run up a mountain.  I did quite well and ran the entire way down, but only managed to run 1/2 mile on the way up.  I am only slightly disappointed.  I have to start somewhere, right??

View from halfway down the mountain.

I have to share with you a picture of my new trail shoes.  I am aware that most of you probably could care less about my shoes, but I am SO excited to have these and I especially love that they are purple.  They make me want to sing “One eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater”, a song that holds a place in my heart from my gymnast days.  Purple people eaters RULE!

So here’s to the next mountain run.  My shoes and I say, “BRING IT ON, PURPLE PEOPLE EATERS!”