My Journey With Weight Loss – Only 10 More Days

Well, 10 more days and I will run my first 1/2 marathon. I say first because I have come to accept the fact that going forward I am probably going to keep doing this. I really want to be able to say to people ‘oh yeah, I run 1/2 marathons’. I don’t know why I want to do this or what the hell has happened to me that I even think this way but that is where I am at. I just recognize that 18 months of training have really changed me.

So how is training going? I have to say I am working harder physically than I have ever done in my life. I mentioned last week that during my long run I really tried to push myself well out of my comfort zone. I have continued to do this in all of my runs since then each time doing more intervals as well as making them longer. I acknowledge that doing that during a 5k run is very different than doing it during a 10k run but I keep pushing it. Yesterday was my 10k and I spent more than 1/2 of that run at what I believe is my top sustainable speed and I was pretty proud of myself when I was done though I note that I was soaking wet from sweat when I got home and that there was some protest from my legs for the rest of the day (today I am doing a recovery day and only doing walking but that will still amount to 30k steps and about 20km).

Has this helped? You bet it has! After my 8k run on Tuesday I thought for the 1st time since I started training for the 1/2 marathon that I just might finish within the 3 hour window that the streets along the route will be closed. As a matter of fact both my 8k and 10k runs this week were at the fastest pace that I have run since I started down this path 18 months ago. Yes, there are times that I thought I couldn’t keep doing my intervals but I kept pushing those thoughts aside and instead focused on my run. I can successfully do this if I just keep that focus.

Tomorrow I will be doing an 18k run and my hope is I can keep up a decent pace for the entire run. If I can do that then I know I will be able to do the 21.1k in 10 days. I am also listening to my coach who told me next week nothing more than a 10k (which sadly sounds easy to me now) and reminded me the day of the 1/2 marathon to not get caught up trying to keep up with other runners when the race starts, instead I will go at my own pace. I’ve got this!