My Journey With Weight Loss – I Survived My 1st 16k!

A little over a month ago we got our hot tub. Last Saturday I took a water sample in to be analyzed to make sure the chemicals were all in balance, they were not. They gave me all the corrective measures to be done which I followed and now I have a very murky hot tub whose chlorine levels are nil. I took in another water sample on Thursday and they again told me what to do to fix it. Sadly that has not worked either. The frustrating part is until we resolve this we can’t use said hot tub which I so desperately wanted to do tonight.

So today was my 16k. When Coach told me that is what she wanted me to do for my long run this week I wasn’t surprised. Moreover, I wasn’t overwhelmed or intimidated I just knew this was the next part of my training. I got up this morning and had a protein and carb breakfast making sure I had some good fuel in me to get me through several hours of running (note there was a snack of almonds when I got home).

Because my day was going to be busy I hit the road this morning at 5:15am. I did my normal 5 minute walk and then started to run. I had already decided that the best way to do this was slow and steady, this was not the time to try and improve my pace, this was the time to test my endurance and boy did I.

While I had calculated my run to get me to the 16k mark I knew where I would go but it was so pretty running along the beach that I decided to change things up and instead of running uptown I decided to do 2 runs along the pier and promenade. I am so glad I did that as it was beautiful down there. I passed a young man who I often see running on the promenade and at the last pass he asked why he was seeing me so much. I told him I was running my 1st 16k and he said well done, you’ve got this.

I admit the last 2k were a bit tough but I knew I had already done 14k and I could make it to the finish. When I got home my dog was looking at me expectantly wanting her walk but quite frankly after that much running I opted to just let her go out into the backyard. That’s ok though, she loves it there.

The bottom line is I, Gwenne Farrell, formerly a short, fat, chick just ran 16k. Who knew when I decided to train for a 10k that this is where I would be. Remember, it is simply 1 step at a time.