Getting Better with Time!

After a certain age birthdays definitely lose their fun.  My favorite way to overcome my birthday dread is to run some distance to celebrate the milestone.  This year I ran a 30th birthday 30K (18.6 miles).  It wasn't a race, just a training run.  One year ago, my furthest distance was 14 miles.  While I was 29, I ran 2 marathons and 7 half marathons.  I definitely built up a lot of milage and some speed over the past year.  Realizing that I'm in the best shape of my life definitely helped put me at ease with leaving my 20's behind.

Aside from proving that I'm more kickass than I was last year, doing something healthy to celebrate my birthday helps to offset all of the food and drink laden celebrations.  A huge part of aging well (both mentally and physically) involves staying in shape.  The training runs required to build up to your age in kilometers will help to do just that!

Running your age in kilometers isn't as daunting as running it in miles.  You don't build up to a full marathon until age 42!  I'll try to keep this as a birthday tradition as long as I can (I suspect a 70th birthday 70K isn't going to happen though...).