Tag, I'm it

I've been tagged by Morgan.....who is apparently in Runners Edge and I didnt know it! Well, i guess perhaps I would have known if I had been going :) So anyway, here goes:

1. How would I describe my running 10 years ago?
Nada. 10 years ago I was in college, and MAYBE worked out a couple of times a month. Running was never involved though, and it sounded like a horrible way to exercise. I thought anyone who ran marathons was stupid.

2. What is your best and worst race experience?
The worst was HalfMax in 2006. That was my one and only DNF to date. It was awful. It was painful, and humiliating. It made me never want to do another race again. Conversely, my best race experience was HalfMax 2007! (surprised that it's not IMFL?? :) Since it had been so awful the year before, finishing it the second time around was awesome. I loved every second of the race, and was more than trained for it. It was great.

3. Why do you run?
It is sort of an means to an end. I HAVE gotten to the point where I usually enjoy it, but typically it's to fulfill some higher goal. Like finishing a tri, or maybe shooting for the 50-States club.

4. What is the best or worst piece of advice you've been given about running?
Like Morgan said, the best piece of advice that I have ever gotten is that you are only competing against yourself. I am slow. I mean, 70-year old woman slow. Slow slow. I will never win any age group awards....unless maybe I'm still running when I'm 85 and I'm the only one in my AG. I used to be embarassed about my pace, but pretty soon I realized that nobody else thinks anything of it, so I shouldnt either. Nobody is looking at me thinking "damn, that chick is slow". Well, maybe they are, but they keep it to themselves! So I just stopped caring about how fast or slow I run in comparison to other people and decided to focus on how fast or slow I run in comparison to my own previous times.

5. Tell us something surprising about yourself that not many people would know.
Anyone who has been reading my blog for the past year knows quite a bit, so lets see..... I'm so terrified of spiders that I have started going to a different floor to use the bathroom at work because 2 of the ceiling tiles are missing in the one on my floor, and I'm afraid a spider will jump out onto me. Even if I'm not in the stall under the missing tiles.

And I would tag people, but pretty much everyone I know who blogs has already been tagged :P