Heather's Adventures in Lesotho

Dan, Jon and I before the run. The boys both ran the 22k trail run. Not pictured is Camilla who ran the half marathon on Saturday and was likely still asleep when this picture was taken.

Last Friday I completed my first ever 10k race – the Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon Trail Run in Cape Town. It is the first race I’ve entered since a very un-illustrious “career” of high school cross country consisting of going to a few races my sophomore year and quitting early in the season. Ever since then I have always said that I don’t like to run but over the last year I have learned to enjoy it (even if I don’t love it.)

As I mentioned before, my running adventures started in January last year with Anita and the Run 5k application on my iPhone. We started out jogging 45 seconds and walking 90 seconds for 20 minutes. It took me all of last year (with a huge gap in winter) to build up to running for 30 minutes straight. After going on an accidental 10k run in early December, I signed up for the trail run as motivation to keep pushing myself. Unfortunately I had about 3 weeks of injuries in February/March so I didn’t get to the level of training that I hoped I would, but really my goal all along was just to complete the race.

Me at the starting line in my Merrell Barefoot Pace Glove shoes with my race chip attached.

Honestly, a big step towards finally feeling like I was starting to enjoy running was when I started wearing minimalist shoes. I read “Born to Run” last year after a non-runner friend raved about it on Goodreads as interesting even for non-runners. The book piqued my interest in minimalist shoes and I planned to look into them when I was home over Christmas. Then the universe intervened when I (VERY) randomly came across the Merrell Barefoot Run Pace Glove at store in Lesotho where you least suspect to find them. I did some research on the particular model and after reading great reviews decided to give them a try. Now I can’t imagine going back because they feel so great. I get a lot of questions of how I like my shoes and I always rave about them (usually saying something along the lines of “I la la love them!”)

My medal for completing the trail run.

This is going to sound so cheesy but as I was running on Friday I couldn’t stop thinking about how cool it was that I could actually do it and how much fun I was having. I was so proud of myself for being able to run the majority of the distance and I’m pretty sure there were at least 3 people behind me when I crossed the finish line so I came in better than my 397th/400 prediction. 😉

I don’t know that I will ever consider myself a “runner” because, honestly, I don’t LOVE it like I think real runners do. That I said, I do *like* it and – most importantly – consider it something that I want to be better at. I think that’s what it’s really all about, right? Having the race as something to work towards was extremely motivating so I will definitely be signing up for another one soon. I really like the pattern I developed of doing a longer run (8k+) one day a week with a couple of 5k mixed in. It suits my lifestyle perfectly.