Introducing Runner Nerd

Hello! I decided to try my hand at keeping a blog to keep track of my running and how things are going in school. I went back to college this year at the age of 46. My last kid graduated high school this year and is now away at college. I've been thinking about a slight career change for a few years now. I decided it was now or never.
The runner me:
I ran track and cross country in high school and in college (a teeny tiny college) but after college it was time to enter real life and I thought that if you weren't training for the olympics that's all there was. I didn't know anything about local 5K races or marathons. I don't think I'd ever heard of a marathon at that time. If someone had told me that I'd someday run 26.2 miles I'd never have believed them. I ran the 800 (aka half mile) and my longest runs were 6 miles.
Fast forward about 20 years...I'm closing in on 40 and not liking it one little bit. I had been going to a gym for a couple years and had met quite a few people who ran. I found out about age groups and found out that people my age and older (much older even) are out there running 5Ks. I didn't know what a 5K was at first then found out that it is actually the distance I ran in cross country. Thoughts of running kept creeping into my brain. I remembered running and I remembered that I enjoyed it. When I would be driving down the road and see someone running I would wish I was running too. Then one day when I was 41 years old my college student niece asked me if I want to walk in the Detroit Race for the Cure with her. I'm not sure where this came from but I blurted out, "I'm going to RUN it!" I started running on a treadmill at the gym, I asked the spinning instructor about training for a 5K....I still joke with that trainer about that day!! I tell him that he was a bad influence!! I asked for help training for a 5K and 3 years later I'm running a marathon then one day I find myself following him out into and swimming across a lake! I had to go and ask a trainer who does Ironman triathlons for running advice!! I ran that 5K in 28:55 and felt like I would fall over at the finish line, my whole entire body hurt and I felt like throwing up. I didn't think I could ever do that again. I went back and ran the same Race for the Cure the next year in 25:39!! After that I began entering more 5Ks.
Well, I guess it became a habit because my 3rd year of running I ran just over 1000 miles for the year! I was beginning to sometimes place in my age group in 5Ks and I ran my first half marathon! The next year I ran my first marathon and have run 2 more since then.
Sooooo, here I am. This has not been a good running year. This summer I had my first injury--a pulled hamstring muscle. Just when I thought it was better and I was running again it would pull again. This happened 3 times. It's been 6 weeks since the last time it pulled and I am hoping that it's behind me. In July my mileage went from 30 miles/week to 10 or 12. It has not been much fun. I had to skip two 10 mile races that I really wanted to run and had to switch from a 25K trail run to the 10K of the same race. I ran the slowest 10K I've ever run, I suppose the fact that it was a trail race had something to do with that! I placed 2nd in my age group so that was fun! It had been a very long time since I'd placed in anything!! I am finally able to keep up with the others at a group run again! I run with a group on Thursday nights. I'll write more about them in the future.
The student me:
This semester is the first that I've went to the college for classes. Until now my classes have been online. I have become quite the nerd! I am the oldest student in both of my classes but have the highest grades! Many things have changed since I went to college the first time, I will write about that next time. Some things are good, such as after an exam within a couple of hours the scores are posted online--I like that!! Some things are quite unbelievable, such as kids texting constantly during class then they ask the teacher when an assignment is due 30 seconds after he said it or when it's staring at them on the screen. (screen=what used to be a chalkboard) This happens EVERY class.
I have no idea if anyone else will ever read any of this, I'm not sure anyone would want to!! I'm doing it for myself, I guess I am thinking that when school gets really tough next year when I actually enter the program I am going for I can look back and see how far I've come or something like that!!

Runner Nerd