My Journey With Weight Loss – Keeping Myself In Check

Ok, a bit of a rant. The other day I went to cross a street. The driver at the crosswalk waved at me to cross and I noted another car waiting to turn left through the intersection but there was still traffic coming. As I was 1/2 way through the crosswalk that car turned left right at me! I said out loud, really? and the woman driver not even looking at me replied through her open window, yep really. Wow, those few seconds that she got to her destination sooner were worth injuring or killing me? I ask all of you when you are driving please obey the law and give pedestrians the right of way.

Yesterday I headed out very early planning to do an 18k run. I had been training hard all week working up to this long run and was ready for it. I was a bit concerned because my Fitbit was indicating my readiness score was pretty low but thought what the hell, I can do this. Except I couldn’t. I started running and my legs were groaning way more than usual but I thought I’ll just do an easy run (words I never thought would be in my head) and once I warm up I’ll feel better. That did not happen. When I hit the 10k mark I realized I had worked too hard this week and my body was letting me know to back off. I decided to shorten the run but quite frankly there was no way for me to get home without putting in another 6k so yes, I still did a 16k run. When I was done I thought ok, you are so close to your 1/2 marathon, now is not the time to screw things up by pushing yourself too hard. I only did 1 walk yesterday as opposed to the normal 2 and even that was shorter than what I would normally do. Moreover, today instead of doing my regular Saturday gentle 6k I did a walk instead.

So I need to put this all in perspective, the past 5 days I have walked/run an average of 21k each day which translates into an average of 31k steps each day. Since I started on this journey 2 years ago this is the most work I have done. While I am proud of what I put in this week I have to keep myself in check, I have a goal and I don’t plan on messing that up just so I can say I worked really hard. I will keep working hard next week but I will be far more cognizant of giving my body the recovery time it needs. What that means is I will still train but maybe more walking than running. Coach has told me not to do more than 10k on any run next week and I plan to do exactly as she says. Sometimes to get where you want to go you just need to take a step back.