bold beth

i have a horrible memory of sitting in a circle in elementary school and the teacher telling us to all choose a word that started with the same letter of our name...and that we were going to go around the circle and share. "cool carlie, radical ryan, happy heather. maybe it was my lack of vocab, but i could never think of a word that started with a "b" that i could put in front of my name that didn't sound ridiculous. i would get embarrassed and when the teacher would get to me, i would tell her that i couldn't think of any.

"how about beautiful bethany"

exactly what i was trying to avoid. i had actually thought of that, but i thought beautiful was a word that adults used to describe eachother. kids weren't beautiful, and not that i was self-loathing, but i didn't think that i was "beautiful". heaven knows i wasn't going to introduce myself to my class that way. 

"ok" i whispered with a shrug of the shoulder. it was weird for me to be quiet or embarrassed. i was a pretty happy and rambunctious kid (don't believe me? you should watch home movies. then again...maybe not)

well, here i am twenty-something years later looking at another "b" word in front of my name that i never would have pictured.  bold beth?? hah. it's almost humorous. but guess what, i did two bold things this week. they both might come back to haunt me, but i did them. i was brave. i went out of my comfort zone. and i'm proud of myself. 

want to know what one of them was?? 

i signed up for the utah valley half marathon.

it's ok if you just laughed a little bit. i did...after i had a slight panic attack. i just paid money to run a race. alot of money. a new pair of shoes money. to run. 

this is kind of how i feel after paying tuition or buying textbooks for a new semester. "i don't even like school, but i just paid money to sit in a classroom and read this textbook. i don't even like to read, why would i want to read this textbook???"

the last time i signed up for a race was when my work put together a ragnar team. work paid for our registration fee. and i was training for my legs...kind of. my heart wasn't in it and i was scared to death i would let my team down...until i was diagnosed with swine flu a week before the race and my doctor told me i couldn't run. too bad so sad.

i would not consider myself a runner. i wouldn't even say i like running.

but i do like the way running makes me feel. so here we go. bold beth is looking for a training schedule that will get me to *finish* my race. i'm not looking to complete it in a certain amount of time, just before time runs out. 

do you have any suggestions on where to find an simple training schedule for beginners?