Sunday Runday {1}

A couple weeks ago, I saw a post by Simon & Schuster Canada on Instagram asking if any bloggers were interested in joining their #RunningLikeAGirl challenge. It featured a book that has been on my wishlist for a while, so I immediately jumped at the chance to participate.

S&S Canada sent over a copy of Running Like a Girl by Alexandra Heminsley, and asked participants to sign up for a race in June. Throughout April and May, we're training for that race and reading through Alexandra's book on her first experience training for a marathon (with no previous running experience whatsoever).

Conveniently enough, I had already signed up for a race in June! I signed up for my second 10k race, and I've been casually (or more like "sporadically") running on and off for over a year. I barely survived that last 10k and while it was great to do it, I knew that this spring I would basically be starting from scratch having not run during the winter months. It's so easy to feel frustrated when you start out because it feels SO HARD, and your lungs and heart are like "nope, screw this!" and it can be just as annoying having to break for short walks - but I know it gets better and Alexandra's book is a great reminder of that! I'm following a specific training program through the Nike+ iPhone app, so I went for three runs and two walks since this was my first week: a total of 16.99 miles. I also do strength training (weight lifting) twice a week at my gym, and do yoga once a week.

See? Some proof that I kept up with my training plan this weekend! I'm slow, but I did it :) 

So between now and my race in June, I'll post every so often on Sundays (with most updates on Instagram, and a few on Twitter) sharing my progress as I prepare for that upcoming race!

I'm a few chapters into Running Like a Girl and I absolutely love it - I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fairly new runner, a runner wanting to run longer distances, or someone who has never run before but is curious about starting! Alexandra's writing is so funny and her little stories are so easy to relate to. She covers some very important topics from the start - things like finding the motivation to begin, the kind of running gear that's important when you start out, and what to expect when you actually start running.

One of the most important reminders for me was in chapter 2 because she stressed the importance of being patient and consistent with running. I'm the kind of person who wants to dive right in all at once and expect immediate results, so it was a timely reminder and very reassuring that it's fine for me to be slow and all that matters is that I RUN.

S&S Canada kindly sent over a starter kit to get us going too which was very exciting!

I'm curious if any of you are runners? Are any of you thinking about starting to run? Has anyone already read Running Like a Girl? Thoughts on it?

Feel free to get in touch if you have any other questions about this!