Well week two did not go well at all.
My excuse for the week was work and the extra hours. But really, I should have held myself accountable.
Here’s the breakdown:
Plan called for: 21 miles (Tue/Thur/Fri/Sat/Sun)
What I did: 0 miles, but swam on Monday morning (1100 yards)
Thankfully, today marks a new week.
Well, I got back on the horse. Thanks to my friend Lauren, who sent me texts until I proved I was at my run, I completed 3 of the 4 runs. It wasn’t a perfect first week, but I will take it.
Here’s the breakdown:
Plan called for: 15 miles (Tue/Thur/Fri/Sat/Sun)
What I did: 11 miles (Wed/Thur/Fri/Sat)
All runs were designated easy pace and they were anything but.
Average pace was over 15 minutes/mile but I hope to improve as I get back into it.
We shall see how week 2 goes….
It’s been awhile…..
Six months to be exact.
That was the last time I put on my running shoes and completed a race. It’s been even longer since I did a training run (September 2017). I can’t pinpoint just one reason for this lapse. I just came up with millions of excuses; I’m too tired, I couldn’t fall asleep last night, I have a long day ahead of me at work and need sleep, I am traveling this weekend, This is my only day to sleep in, I think my ankle is still swollen, I don’t want to run there, I need to do laundry. These excuses go on and on.
But at some point, I just need to stop making excuses.
So here we are again, starting over, trying to find the motivation.
Fall Marathon training has begun.
Wish me luck!
I always get really motivated at work that the next morning is going to be the day I wake up early and run. And then morning comes and I just sleep in instead. That happened for 12 of the 13 running days for the first three weeks of training.
Week 1: 0 Miles out of 7 Miles
Week 2: 0 Miles out of 15 Miles
Week 3: 3 Miles out of 21 Miles
The one day I did manage to run, I was still short one mile due to google maps leading me to the wrong meeting location. It was a planned easy run while I build up mileage and I kept my heart rate consistent, but it is still higher than the Maffetone 180 Formula plan.
Wish me luck on Week 4!
After a terrible 2016 racing year, I have come to realize that I can only slack off on training plans so much and still improve my marathon times. I have some big goals for the 2017-2018 Marathon Season (Aug-July) and if I want to obtain those goals, I need to get serious.
I am planning to run the Chicago Marathon, the New York City Marathon, the Walt Disney World Marathon and the Los Angeles Marathon this coming year. Right now I only have one goal in mind, run a sub-5 hour marathon at the Chicago Marathon. Why? Well, over Memorial Day Weekend my parents visited and out of this visit came a true bet. Not a traditional Kolsrud Challenge, a real bet. So real, that I wrote up a contract for my Dad and I to email sign. The terms, if I run a sub-5 hour marathon in Chicago I get $1000.00 and if I don’t, I pay my dad $500.00. It isn’t all about the money, I also want a PR (personal record) real bad and where better than Chicago, the setting of my last PR in 2015 (5:27).
I need to drop 27 minutes off my currently best marathon time and it has proven harder than imagined. I need to really tighten up on my bad eating habits, good bye McDonald’s, and focus on fueling the body with the right foods. The other factor, is the training plan. I usually find something online and follow it 50% of the time. This won’t work. Over the spring, I had researched a few plans and had an idea of what I wanted to do. I am doing a hybrid of two plans, the Hanson Marathon Method and the Maffetone M.A.F. Test. I will be aiming for my easy runs to all be at the M.A.F. test heart rate. This will allow me to prevent injury and see where my fitness is at so I can see if the sub-5 is achievable.
I have enlisted my good friend Lauren and some co-workers to try and keep me accountable. To help even further, I will be posting what workouts I do each week and every so often what my race pace will be based on those workouts. I need the online accountability as my training should have started the week of June 6th and I have yet to run. But here we are and tomorrow is Day 1!
Wish me luck!
Erica
It started over a decade ago, when I was a junior in high school. I was a typical, depressed teenager who struggled with body image. Up until this point I had never considered myself “overweight” or “fat.” Even when I was surrounded by my much slimmer friends, I still didn’t view myself as the eyesore I do today. I had a fairly extensive workout routine that consisted of three-hour swim team practices five-six days a week. In my mind, I could eat an entire pizza or drink a two-liter of soda and not worry about the negative impact on my health. I thought I was a normal teenager. Until one day I didn’t…..
I can’t exactly remember what triggered my obsession to be thin, but I do remember how it took over my life. Anorexia was the first eating disorder I experimented with. I stopped eating breakfast, barely ate lunch, and avoided dinner as much as possible. I would go to my high school swim practice, starving, with barely any energy to finish each practice. I would sit in my car, alone, during lunchtime stressing out over the 2 grams of fat my 90-calorie granola bar had (which was all I ate for lunch on most days). If I was really struggling to get through my afternoon classes, I’d chew on gum to help curb the hunger. Dinnertime was always tricky, since there were parents to avoid. I don’t exactly recall how I managed to work around dinners. I do remember one particular occasion in which I rushed an overflowing plate of take-out chinese up to my bedroom and took my time placing each bite into my mouth only to spit each bite back out into a garbage bag moments later. I was miserable, but I was seeing results. It didn’t take long for me to drop 30lbs. And while I was satisfied with how I looked in my swimsuit at practice, I soon became disappointed with my performance results. I didn’t have the energy to train properly, I developed a shoulder injury to due my deteriorating muscles, and my event times at the swim meets were far from impressive. I became embarrassed and ashamed. Embarrassed that I went from the superstar on the swim team to mediocre. Ashamed because I knew I was destroying my body for unnecessary and selfish reasons. So I came to the decision that anorexia wasn’t the right fit for me.
Bulimia made its’ way into my life when I started college. Nothing worse for a severely depressed girl prone to eating disorders than allowing her the unlimited freedom of going to college. No more parents hovering over me. No more “open doors” like there were at home. No more being stranded at school for eight hours a day. I could go where I wanted to, when I wanted to, and do whatever I wanted to. My bulimia began as a once-in-awhile hobby, a quick fix to a regretful binge session. I didn’t do it often because I didn’t want to get caught and get stuck speaking to a counselor or, god forbid, have my parents be notified. With each year of college I gained more of that precious (and yet, dangerous) freedom, allowing my bulimic tendencies to escalate. By my senior year I was living in a single room by myself, and that’s when things went from bad to worse.
I continued to swim all through college, causing my anxiety about being on display in a swimsuit to haunt me for four more years. I was just coming off a very successful swim season from my junior year (making NCAA B cuts in the 400 IM and 800 FR Relay, as well as setting school records in the 400 IM, 200 IM, and 800 FR Relay) and was looking forward to achieving even more success during my senior year. I knew that if I wanted to continue to get faster, I needed to properly fuel my body. I needed to be healthy, both mentally and physically. But there was something about finally having a room all to myself that made binging and purging seem all that more thrilling. I went from purging a few times a month, to a few times a week, to a few times a day. I would bring meals back to my dorm room, devour them, and throw them up moments later into a garbage bag. Cheeseburgers, chicken fingers, french fries, pizza, puppy chow, popcorn, I purged it all. I purged until my throat was raw. I purged until there was nothing but bile. I purged until I felt completely empty inside. It got to the point where I was ordering large-sized pizzas for the sole purpose of throwing them up, every single slice. To dispose of the pungent aroma, I’d wait until my neighbors weren’t around, sneak out to the garbage chute down the hall, and watched as my fatal addiction fell seven-stories down. Then, I’d spray my entire room with fabric freshener, hoping to cover up the lingering stench. As far as I know, none of my neighbors knew about my bulimia, or at least they never said anything. If they had, would it have made a difference?
Needless to say, my swimming suffered. I had little motivation at practices, I was moody all the time, my throat burned while trying to breathe in between strokes, and I was constantly paranoid that everybody knew what I was doing in secret. When it came to the championship meet at the end of the season, although I did manage to perform well, my times weren’t anywhere near where I’d hoped they’d be. I knew I had so much more potential (and I still believe that I do). But there I was, destroying my body and risking my life. For what? To look good in a swimsuit? Reflecting back on it now, I understand that it wasn’t worth it, not in the slightest, and I will always regret holding myself back from discovering my true capabilities.
My idea of the ideal body image wavered in the years following. As soon as I graduated from college I was on my own again, living in a rental house with three of my former teammates who were a year behind me in school. The bulimia followed me to that small upstairs bedroom, lit solely by fading christmas lights duct-taped to the thin walls. I lived there while I “trained” for my first and second marathons. Neither of which are much to be desired (4:51 and 4:55, respectively). However, back then I wasn’t so fixated on what my finish times would be. I just wanted to survive long enough to cross those finish lines so that I could rub my overly-priced medals into my friend’s and family’s faces (I’m sorry about that everyone). Initially, I wasn’t planning on doing more than one marathon, so a goal time was never set. What I was really focusing on was my body image. Distance runners are all slim and lean, so I needed to be too. Even though my training was terrible and I wasn’t making any progress towards getting faster, I still wanted to look like a true distance runner. Hence why the impulse to purge carried over after my swimming career ended. After I finished my second marathon four minutes slower than my first, I was dumbfounded. How could I possibly be getting slower? I was convinced that my weight loss, resulting from my unhealthy habits, would magically make me a faster runner. Of course it didn’t. But back then, I didn’t know any better.
My third marathon came and went. Finishing in 4:55 again. Same old story just in a different location (now living back with my parents). Again, I found myself alone majority of the time, with only my eating disorders keeping me company. I fluctuated between anorexia and bulimia, trading off every few days. After suffering through another disappointing race, I came to the conclusion that I had hit my peak.
A year later, now living up in the twin cities with my fiance (now husband), I decided to give the marathon one last chance. I had always been open with him about my struggles with body image and eating disorders, and we came to the agreement that I would no longer allow myself to destroy my own body. So he helped me get my training on track and at last I began to see some progress. As difficult as it was for me to let go, I made it through training without falling off the wagon. Granted, my overall diet still wasn’t up to par, but I learned to appreciate my body and what it could do given the proper care. I finished that marathon with a time of 4:05.
I took two and a half years off before running my next marathon (mainly because I had a baby). This time around I was serious about qualifying for Boston. In order to do that though, I needed to get my diet under control. I stuck to a meal plan (read about it here) that I created, emphasizing clean eating six days out of the week and one day where I got to splurge. I didn’t count calories or track marcos, I just listened to my body. It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, but necessary if I wanted to see results. And I did see results. Each week I was getting faster. I was holding paces I never thought I could. I was dedicated and determined. I was training with a purpose. Yes, I was losing weight, but I wasn’t obsessing over it like I had so many times before. My body was transforming into the form it needed to be in to get a BQ. And on race day, when I crossed the finish line in 3:21, I didn’t care about how my body looked. All I felt was pride over how much work I put into training and how I finally learned to treat my body with respect.
—Kari
Disclaimer: If you think you may be suffering from an eating disorder, please reach out for help. You can visit the National Eating Disorder website for more information.
Lucky 13, that is what I am this past year’s Los Angeles Marathon was.
The Los Angeles Marathon is a race I have now ran three times and each time it does get better. Weather is the main factor of my less than stellar runs the previous two years and this year, the weather gods were nice and gave us more favorable conditions. Don’t get me wrong, it got hot, but it was significantly better than previous years.
My weekend began on Saturday morning at the LA Big 5k race at Dodger Stadium. This is a nice family orientated 5k and was the perfect choice for my shake out run. (I tend to skip my shake out run, so I leaped at the chance for a reason to stay accountable and earn a medal!).
After the race, I headed to the race expo. I choose to drive myself and parked in one of the ramps. Tip for next year – find street parking. The expo was great and Skechers really brought great merchandise this year. In all, I spent about 2.5 hours there before heading home to rest up.
Race morning I elected to drive to Dodger stadium since I had friends meeting me at the finish line to drive me home. The race is point-to-point so you either park at the finish or the start line. They offer shuttles for free from both the finish line and select Metro Stations.
Once at the race, I headed to the Air France Start Line Hospitality Lounge and met up with the other Conqur Ambassadors. If you run LA, add on this option! You get a heated tent, stretching area, private bathrooms, private gear check and pre-race snacks! I took advantage of all of this and wonder why I have never done this option before.
Before I knew it, it was race time! I was in a seeded corral, but since I was injured, I elected to start in the open corral. I hate being in runners way and knew I wasn’t running as fast as planned. Instead, I looked for the Clif Bar Pace Team and lined up with the 5:30 group. My plan, hang with them for as long as possible. I usually check in with their team at the expo to see what the race day plan is for the Pacer. I luckily had one utilizing the run-walk method.
The course is hilly, but it is beautiful. I always enjoy running through the city, because for the other 364 days a year, I avoid most of the area because I hate traffic. Running on closed roads just brings a peace to me and makes me love the city. Miles 1 – 4 flew by and then we hit the first big hill. I hate this hill, but there is always great crowd support there and that makes it bearable.
Shortly after the hill we move out of the Downtown area and into West Hollywood area. Along the course is the famous hot dog cheer station (free for runners!), a glimpse of the Hollywood sign and Jimmy Kimmel’s Prankster Team along Hollywood Blvd. The last two years I have made Jimmy’s video (background only) as I do not fall for the pranks.
Right before Hollywood Blvd, I pulled back from the Pace Group. I stayed with them for nine miles, but my legs and body couldn’t keep the faster pace. I adjusted my run-walk intervals and settled in for the final fifteen.
I hit my wall early on the LA course, right around the half way point. I think it is partly due to lack of crowds and partly due to no shade coverage. I knew I had friends at miles 19 and 20, so I told myself only a 10k to my first group of friends and pushed through the wall. Around mile 16 I ran into fellow Pasadena Pacer runners and that gave me the push I needed. I reminded myself that I was out here to have fun, not have my best race time. So out the phone came and I started taking photos and safely Snapchatting. See Snapchat and the Los Angeles Marathon had teamed up to bring over 40 Geofilters and I wanted to be like Pokemon and find them all!
This new task kept my mind off the race and I found myself smiling and interacting with the crowd and volunteers again. Soon I hit mile 19 where my November Project friends were manning a water station. I cannot tell you how great those hugs were and how seeing their energy kept me positive. That just continued to grow, because at mile 20 the famous Pasadena Pacer cheer station was set up. They have members run us in and ask if we need anything. You feel like a NASCAR driver at a pit stop. They have everything! I opted to get a cooling towel to help with my body temperature and kept going.
Mile 21 is my least favorite mile, just not pretty and lacks energy. We are running under the 405 overpass so not many spectators can be there. But I knew once I got to the other side there would be the super not-so-secret beer stop. I stopped to grab a dixie cup of beer and phoned my friends at the finish to let them know I was less than 90 minutes from the finish.
The last five miles seem to drag on, sure we are closer to the ocean so the temperature drops, but I usually am dragging my feet and just ready to be done. See, they hide a hill right around mile 23 and it is just cruel. I know it is coming and at mile 22 I spot another November Project runner and yell out some encouragement. The runner responds and we both have the look of dread so I ask if I can run with them for a bit to try and get some energy for the hill. That turned into us running the final miles together. It was his first marathon and we began to take videos at the mile markers and chat about running and our lives. It was just the distraction I needed.
At the six hour mark I knew that I would not beat last years time, but I kept positive. We had just under a mile to go and we were on the final stretch. I heard my two friends yelling (not because they spotted me, but because the spotted the other November Project runner) and I yelled back. After that I was ready to finish the last 0.4 left. I started yelling at my favorite race announcer, Rudy Novotny, and he gave me a great finish line shout out back! And that was it, I finished my third Los Angeles Marathon. My comeback race after a difficult year. My race to prove I could do better. My chance to enjoy the city of Los Angeles. Lucky Marathon 13.
Registration for the Conqur LA Challenge is open! The challenge includes the Santa Monica Classic 5k/10k (Sept), Pasadena Half Marathon (Jan) and the Los Angeles Marathon (March).
Registration for only the Los Angeles Marathon will open in September.
–Erica
The marker for mile twenty-six is finally within reach, right at the peak of the seemingly endless hills that have been wreaking havoc on my body for the last six miles. My vision is blurry from the cold wind, I can barely read the time clock mounted on the mile marker. I know that I’m still ahead of pace and that it’s just a matter of how far under my goal time I can get. Heading into the downhill stretch, my legs pick up speed while simultaneously beginning to buckle beneath me. Through the foggy mask over my eyes, I can see the finish line. I charge faster towards glory with every ounce of strength I have left. From the sidelines I hear someone shout my name in a cheer, but I don’t acknowledge them, I keep pushing my ailing body forward. And then, just like that, I cross the finish line. My body breaks in half, with my hands falling to my knees. I can’t see anyone or anything. Sixteen weeks of hard training and discipline hit me all at once. Bent over and heaving, I cry. I don’t know what my official time is, and I don’t care. All I know in this moment is that I have just accomplish an impossible goal, five years in the making.
It all started five years ago…..when a simple bet was made. I was out to dinner with my parents and sister when the topic of marathons came up (naturally, right?). I had just completed my first marathon a few months prior and my sister asked me to do the Disney Marathon with her that following winter. She had been doing a few 5k races and was wanting to take on a marathon as a challenge to herself. I agreed, thinking that it would be my last one and that I’d be doing it just for the experience.
At this point I had never envisioned myself as becoming “marathoner” or a runner for that matter. The main reason I ran a marathon in the first place was to check it off my bucket list. I had just graduated from college and decided to retire from competitive swimming (a career that spanned sixteen years of my life, so needless to say I was ready for a break). However, I needed something to replace swimming, so I turned to running. And because I like to set ambitious goals for myself, I signed up for my very first running race, which was a marathon. In my mind, that race was a disaster. I barely trained, my nutrition was poor, and I came in with an overly cocky attitude. I ran the first 5k way too fast and ended up walking majority of the second half. I finished in a time of 4:51:17.
Back to the dinner….somehow qualifying for the Boston Marathon snuck into the conversation. My dad was curious about what the BQ was for our age group so we looked it up: 3:35. Let the betting begin. My dad, assuming that neither of us would ever get a BQ, told my sister and I that if we received a qualifying time for Boston, he would pay us $10,000 (which somehow got changed to only $5,000, but I stand by my account of hearing $10,000. Unfortunately, nobody else that was present at the dinner can corroborate my story. So we’ll just say $5,000 for my dad’s sake). Hearing this, our eyes instantly lit up. I don’t know what my sister was thinking at that moment, but I knew that I would have a lot of work to do to get a BQ. At the same time, though, I had a lot of motivation to prove my dad wrong. So, after a couple of margaritas, we all shook on the bet.
Two more marathons came and went, and my finish time had only gotten slower (4:55:23 and 4:55:56, respectively). To be honest, I lost motivation along the way and didn’t train properly for these races, plus my diet was still terrible. I, being a bit conceited, thought that over time I would just naturally get faster at running. I didn’t comprehend that I would actually have to put forth effort and discipline. So, after suffering through three lackluster marathons, I figured that I wasn’t meant to be a runner and decided to cut my losses and retire early.
Having been a competitive athlete for most of my life, it’s common for me to experience an impulsive urge to train for a race from time-to-time. And that’s exactly how I got roped into signing up for my fourth marathon. This time around, I employed the help of my husband, who was a personal trainer at the time, to take my training to the next level. He introduced me to the world of weight training. Wow, what a difference. Up until this point, I was stuck in the mindset that in order to train for a marathon I needed to run, and only run, a bunch of miles five-six days out of the week (granted, I never did follow my own training methodology which is probably why I wasn’t getting any faster). Anyways, I dropped down my weekly mileage to running only three-four days per week and began weight training four-five days per week. While I hesitantly trusted my husband’s philosophy of “run less, lift more,” I still doubted the newfound training method all the way up to race day. Lo and behold, I ran a personal best of 4:05:39. Not only did I cut about fifty minutes from my previous best time, but it was also the first time I was able to run the entire race without stopping to walk. Even though I still didn’t get close to the BQ, I was proud of myself. I came away from the marathon feeling as though I had reached my fullest potential. I was finally ready to be done with marathons.
Well, another year went by and I asked myself, “what if?” What if I could still train harder? What if I could still run faster? What if I could get the BQ? However, I wasn’t exactly ready to jump into training right then and there….seeing as how I was eight months pregnant at the time. I talked to my husband about my desire to try running another marathon and he took the time to write out a personalized training plan for me to follow (once again emphasizing weight training and speed work). I pledged to him that right after our son was born, I’d get back into shape and start training. My ambition was quickly extinguished when the reality of having a newborn smacked me in the face. I got little-to-no sleep, which translated to little-to-no motivation to workout. I was constantly exhausted, irritable, stressed, and depressed. I barely had the energy to get out of bed in the morning, so getting up to exercise was not going to happen. It didn’t take long for me to accept the fact that I was truly done racing.
So another year passes by….and once again I asked myself, “what if?” Also, something felt different this time around. There was a fire ignited inside of me. I had a drive to not only train, but to push my physical limits and boundaries. I wanted the BQ, badly. Of course I wanted to prove to my friends and family that I could do it, but more importantly I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. So for the fifth time, I set out to train for a marathon (with the mindset that this would truly be my last, so might as well give it my all).
For the running portion of my training, I relied on a preset marathon training program I found on the Runkeeper App. The program had me running five days a week, averaging between 40-45 miles per week. Even though the program didn’t call for cross-training, I still decided to incorporate strength training four times a week as well. Mobility and yoga also played key roles in enhancing my running abilities. Another new “technique” I adopted was trying to move as much as possible throughout each day outside of the workouts (including going on morning and evening walks, and chasing my son around the house) rather than loafing on the couch all day.
For sixteen weeks, I followed this schedule (with each run varying in distance and speed work, following the training plan via RunKeeper):
Tuesday: AM – run PM – strength train (ST)
Wednesday: AM – run PM – ST
Thursday: AM – run PM – ST
Friday: AM – ST PM – yoga
Saturday: AM – run PM – walk
Sunday: AM – run PM – walk
Monday – Off (yay!)
Nutrition was a huge factor, and struggle, for me. Before training even started, I knew that I was going to have to get my diet under control (considering that each previous training cycle had been filled with excessive amounts of sugar, grease, and diet soda). I’ve always had the knowledge about how I should eat, I just never committed to changing my unhealthy habits. Plus, I was trapped in the mindset that because I was exercising a lot, I could eat anything I wanted. I used to think: hey, I just ran 10 miles, so I can eat an entire pizza with a pint of ice cream and drink a two-liter of soda on the side. I wasn’t replenishing my body with the nutrients it needed in order to properly recover and grow, instead I was filling my body with empty calories and crap. Hence why my race performances always faltered. That’s why when I trained for this marathon I finally took control of my diet. Tuesday-Sunday (aka my training days) I ate as clean as possible. On Monday (my off day), I allowed myself to splurge with a treat and diet soda. Initially, I was going to go cold turkey off sweets and soda, but for my own sanity and mental stability I gave myself that one day a week to indulge and curb my cravings. I didn’t count calories or keep track of macros, I just listened to my body. In the beginning it was hard to cut out sugary temptations, but seeing the improvements in my running kept me motivated to stay on track.
A typical day of clean eating would entail:
Breakfast – smoothie (almond milk, greek yogurt, vanilla protein powder, chia seeds, spinach, strawberries, and banana) and plain oatmeal
Snack – apple slices with natural peanut butter
Lunch – beans, veggies, and rice
Snack – Quest bar
Dinner – chicken, veggies, and rice
Snack – oatmeal mixed with vanilla protein powder and cinnamon.
The training was hard, the training was brutal, but I pulled through and became a stronger and more powerful runner. Not only did I achieve a Boston Qualifying Time, but I beat it by fourteen minutes, clocking in at 3:21:07. The emotions I felt after crossing the finish line were overwhelming. There was a mixture of pride, exhaustion, happiness, relief, astonishment, and sadness. I was ecstatic with my finish time, but also feeling depressed that the race was over. The moment I had been working towards over the course of sixteen weeks (really over the course of five years) finally came, and I wasn’t fully prepared for it. Part of me knew that this was the greatest athletic accomplishment of my life and I wanted to revel in the moment, while the other part of me realized that this was the greatest athletic accomplishment of my life and that I’ll never experience this moment ever again. Yes, I did win the bet (and claimed the reward), but this race was much more than a bet made over margaritas at a restaurant. This race was just the beginning.
– Kari
there were two sisters who decided to run the Walt Disney World Marathon. The younger sister, Kari, had already ran a marathon and was ready for her next challenge. But for the older sister, Erica, this was going to be her first marathon.
The two had decided to register for this race after the older sister had turned 26. She had the idea that 26 miles for 26 years seemed like a good idea. So, after informing their parents of this decision, both sisters hit the payment button and official signed up to run 26 miles in their favorite place.
Both trained individually and would check in periodically to see how training was going. The older sister almost didn’t make it to the starting line because four weeks prior to the race, she bruised her foot. But after getting advice from a doctor, she continued to stay active by swimming and biking and was assured she could toe the start line.
A week before the big race, the sisters went out to dinner with their parents. The conversation was about the race and how the two thought they would fair. As the night progressed, the topic changed to the Boston Marathon and how in order to run this prestigious race one must qualify by time or run for charity. Now the idea of a qualifying race piqued the interest of the sisters father. See the family had a competitive side. The two sisters and their brother had grown up as competitive swimmers and sometimes earned rewards for earning certain times at swim meets.
In that spirit, the father proposed a challenge. If one of the daughters qualified for the Boston Marathon they were to earn $5,000.00. To get more specific, the daughter only had to run the qualifying time for their age group at a qualifying marathon. They did not need to be accepted into the Boston Marathon (as that time can be faster based on the number of qualifiers in a year) or actually run Boston.
With a clink of glasses, the Kolsrud Challenge was born and the two sisters have been running marathons since.
The Kolsrud Challenge 