BANANAS are Your Friend!

(Kitty) Only a few more days until John and I run our first race with our friend Dwight! John and I are finally getting excited about it. Why only now? Because last Saturday when we were supposed to running a "long" run, we totally broke down, practically before we got started. We did our 5-minute brisk walk to warm up, then started jogging. My muscles began to ache from the very start. About 16 minutes in, I finally broke down into a near-limping walk. How embarrassing!

Then John jogged back to me and I told him I didn't know why, but everything from my hips down hurt and I was just going to walk while he ran ahead. About 5 minutes later, he was toast, too!

When we got home, the first thing we did was go to the store and buy some bananas. I remembered feeling this kind of muscle ache on a lesser scale in the past, and eating bananas always made it go away (potassium, you know). Then I Googled running muscle pain and found out a lot of things can cause it including poor nutrition and dehydration. So we spent the weekend eating a lot of bananas and drinking a lot of water!

Monday, our run went much better. Wednesday, I ran longer than I have so far in all our training (and I think in all my life!) and could've kept going! (Also, a first for me!) We run again on Friday and finish the "Couch to 5K" 9-week program, then our first race is Sunday! We're running in The Brentwood Run 5K, not far from where we live. Our friend Dwight is coming down to run it, too. (He turned us on to the "Couch to 5K" program. This will be his third race.)

We'll let you know how it all goes. And feel free to give us any advice! :)