My Journey With Weight Loss – Pushing Through It

Yesterday I had some fun. My sister noticed our neighbour’s young Australian Shepherd running out on the street. Another neighbour was trying to catch him but she didn’t know his name. I went out on the front stoop and called him and over he ran. We then gave him some treats as we connected him to a leash and then walked him to his home 2 doors away. Here is where it got fun, not 10 minutes later he was back at our front door (obviously a smart dog as he learned pretty quick that we had treats) so same process and back to his owner. The owner has no idea how the dog is getting out but promised it won’t happen again (oh yes it will but we didn’t have the heart to tell him that). Later in the afternoon the dog saw us when he was out walking with his owner and immediately started wagging his tail. I figure to him we are now the treat ladies.

Today was my 18k run and it was cold out so I thought I would run on the dreaded treadmill. 10 minutes into the run I thought, I so don’t want to do this. By 20 minutes into the run I was having a hot flash and became drenched with sweat. At this point I just wanted to stop and that voice in my head told me I have been working hard lately so I shouldn’t feel guilty about giving up on this one session. I promised myself I would quit after an hour.

The hour mark came and I still did not want to run but I sucked it up and told myself I could get 1 1/2 hours. But then, approaching that mark and covered with sweat a new voice started in my head saying ‘you got this’. I started repeating those words and focusing on taking one step after another. At 2 hours I realized I only had 45 minutes to go so I started telling myself ‘you can do this’. The next thing I knew I was at 2 hours and 40 minutes so only 5 minutes to go and at that point I just smiled and started a new cadence in my head, you just pushed through it.

I know that there is nothing wrong with having a day where I don’t feel like training and that my head isn’t in the game. The important thing is not letting those thoughts overwhelm you and to do what you can to push through. I’m not saying you always have to do this, sometimes life just gets in the way but I know for me I felt better getting to the end of that 18k than I would have felt if I cut it short. I just needed to refocus on the basics, a run is just 1 step at a time and if I do enough of them I will have run a 1/2 marathon.