so far, so good...i made my decision to run a marathon a week ago, and since then i have logged 90 minutes of running in 6 days. amazingly, i even managed to get up at 8 am saturday to go for a run. i figure this is goodbye to sleeping in on the weekends and hello to running being more important than sleeping. i'm not so big into the mileage, as i am into keeping track of my time, mainly because i haven't calculated my mileage...too much work. but this is a huge step for me, since i haven't ran this much in over a year. shin update: on a pain scale of 1 to 10, (10 being 'please cut my legs off cause it would hurt less') they've been at about 4.35, which is very good for me. josh told me to run on asphalt instead of concrete, and that's made the biggest difference in the world. i've already received so many words of encouragement from friends & family which are really helping me stay focused. i'm still on a mission to get a friend to join me......
my countdown:
215 days until San Diego. oh my goodness, that's A LOT of days and A LOT of miles to run.

first things first. the reasoning behind my blogging beginnings: it stems from having some incredibly inspiring people in my life. While i could type forever about those who have inspired me, this is a running inspiration so i'll focus on them... my former co-worker josh and my long time friend crystal have both ran in marathons recently and upon hearing about their experiences, i've been doing some thinking. Running a marathon has been a goal of mine since as long as i can remember. This crazy desire started when my mom would let me tag along with her on her 5K races and i would run in the fun runs, desperately wanting to be allowed to run in the 'big people' race alongside her. It continued through jr. high and high school cross country and track, lost its luster when i went to college and resurfaced two years ago, only to be extinguished by severe shin splints and the need for physical therapy.

A recent trip to Chicago with girlfriends reignited my goal. I made a vow with jessi to run the marathon within the next 10 years. But this plan was put into action when kristin expressed her desire to run in the 2006 chicago marathon and i told her "what a great idea, let's do it!" Oh, and a shout out to erin, who was the inspiration behind the name of my blog (kitkat). I'm aiming to run the Rock n Roll San Diego Marathon in June and the Chicago marathon in October. I'm just praying that my shins stay strong and i remain relatively injury free. So here we go, there's no looking back, only running forward......