Run for Ronald 2010

I'm going to talk about this a couple times for two reasons. 1) It's my first race and 2) It's for a charity I think is kinda cool.

I found the Run for Ronald 2010 race on Active.com a great site for finding events to participate in near you. They have running, biking, swimming, and other type events you can find near where you are or where you want to search. Registration is free and it's a great site. I highly recommend Active.com if you're interested in finding races of any length.

On May 15th, at 8am I intend to be lining up near Kiwanis Field in Des Moines, IA to run my first 5k. My goal is, to be honest, finish it. My secondary goal is to finish it in under half an hour. But I'm not trying to put a lot of pressure on myself. I just want my first bib and official finish time. One of the things I've heard about runners is that the difference between runners and joggers is the race. I get that it's a race against myself and my PR (Personal Record).

So. A friend of mine has stayed at a Ronald McDonald House before because their son needed medical help far from home and well, hotels can get spendy if you're there for a while. The Ronald McDonald House provides housing for people who have kids in the hospital. I think that's a great reason to raise money so that's my first race.

Long Run on Saturday & Race News

So, I went almost two weeks without running due to work taking me out of town. Now, while I probably COULD have run. I didn’t. I was beat when I would get done with work and it was all I could do to make myself go for a half hour walk every other day.

So, when I got back home the first thing I did was fire up my iPod, tune into week six of C25k and run. I ran an hour instead of 36 minutes and wound up running 5 miles. I didn't mean to do that much on my first day out in a long time, and the last mile was at a brisk walk but still, that was pretty decent distance and time for first time out. Next were two days back to back off, and tomorrow is another running day. It's good to be back home and back on a schedule again. I like running and missed it while I was gone.

I used to use gowagon.com for keeping track of my runs online but then they merged with their parent company buckeyesports.com and that site, while functional is pretty ugly. So, I've imported my runs over to my new log at the dailymile.com, you've probably noticed the giant honking widget on the right from dailymile.com. I'll be switching to the smaller widget soon, but I was pretty thrilled by the five mile run so I went with the big one.

I've registered for my first 5k race. It's in Des Moines, IA and is a charity race for the Ronald McDonald House: Run for Ronald 2010. A friend of mine's kid has wound up going to the hospital quite a bit and they have used the Ronald McDonald's House sometimes while they're there. So, if you're interested in making any donations let me know, or just drop it in any McDonald's. The money is for a good cause and they're there for people who need the help.