My Journey With Weight – A New Change I Have Noticed

Yesterday was my 2nd day this week that I did my Fartleks (excluding the 2 sets I did on my run Thursday) and I realized they are getting easier. Now don’t get me wrong, these short sprints are still really tough and even though it is my shortest workout of the week, by time I am done I am soaked in sweat and panting away. But, they aren’t as hard as they were last week. Hmm, maybe they are worth doing.

This morning I went out with the plan to do a 5k run (with some high intensity intervals). I was about 1/4 of the way into the run and thought, my legs feel a bit sore and tired. I’m at the point now where I just want to do everything I can to get the most out of my workouts so knocked the run back to 3k and then did a 5k walk including up the dreaded Oxford hill. Quite frankly when I was done my legs felt much better and mentally I felt good because I didn’t give up, I just changed direction a bit.

This led me to thinking, something has really changed in me. I have never thought of myself as a lazy person, ask anyone who has worked with me and they will tell you I have always given it my all. But I realize that for a long time I have been physically lazy. Seriously, I had no qualms about driving around a parking lot looking for a spot closer to the store. I’ve talked before about the excuses I would use to enable that laziness, bad knee, bad back, etc but really, I was just lazy and didn’t want to do things that might involve difficult activity.

When I first started walking, which led to my weight loss journey, even that did not in push me physically. Yes, I walked a lot but it was never at a really fast pace. Even when I started running my focus was always on keeping a steady even gait and yes that was probably the best thing for me to do to build up my strength. Now though, I am different, I want the challenge. I want to feel at the end of every day (ok, except Sunday because that is my recovery day) that I have pushed myself in some way. When I was doing my big run Thursday my husband called me (as he does each morning) and when I told him I was at the 11k mark but still had to get another set of sprints in he said you’ve got this. I was a bit surprised by my response which was, I know I do, because now I want to prove to myself that I can do the hard stuff.

I realized I have changed. I want the physical challenge of making myself even more fit. I look back at the walks I used to do even last fall where it would take me an hour, now it is 45 minutes for the same distance because even what I now consider a ‘gentle’ stroll is done at a good pace (note, not sure my dog is really happy with this when we do our daily walk). I find it interesting that I didn’t even see this change creeping up on me, it was just as I was finishing off my workout today that I realized that I want to feel that sense of accomplishment every time I train no matter what that training is.

I guess it is now time to say I like training and challenging myself. That acknowledgement is likely going to keep me pushing myself to run that 1/2 marathon.