Friday, June 5th was National Running Day.  I’ll admit that I’ve done a lot of whining around not being able to run.  Last week I even wrote an apology letter to my very neglected running shoes.  I even went down to the Race Expo for the half marathon I knew I couldn’t run to see a friend and for fun.

My Twitter stream has been filled with details from various races all over the country and even though I was never really in love with running, the fact that I can’t makes me very wistful so on Wednesday despite feeling like my body was fighting off sickness and my back aching a bit, I went for a run.

I’ve been feeling a little under the weather lately but I knew that I really wanted to do something on National Running Day so I put on my cap from my original 26.2 in 1999 and the race shirt from what was to be my comeback race last week in San Diego (but wasn’t meant to be) and made some literal strides toward my running future.

All San Diego – hat from my 26.2 in 1999 and race shirt from my race that I did not even start in 2013.

It might not have been for very long (or done very fast) but I did it.  I’ve been working on getting stronger with my WundaBar Pilates classes but I haven’t really run since I was in NYC and I did my Kick Ass 5K (which was amazing).

It wasn’t long or even so strong but it was good to be out on a cool, cloudy morning and listen to some tunes while I did what I could for 13.1 minutes.  I’m proud to be the owner of the button below.

And while I was tempted to sign up for another future half marathon in the hopes that I’d be ready sometime, I didn’t.  But I did sign up for the Awesome 80’s Run on Saturday, August 24th at the Pasadena Rose Bowl and I seriously can’t wait.  It was the first run that I did when I moved to Los Angeles and it is a blast, especially for an 80’s freak like me.

Image: Awesome 80’s Run

There are some great summer races going on around the country.  Which one(s) are your hit parade or in your dreams?