Hello friends! I have been so lazy lately and have not posted in quite some time. So many things going on in my life!
Since my last post, lots of training walks have happened and a little thing called the half marathon has come and gone. I'm happy to say that I survived it! Which is pretty much a miracle given that the entire week before I was battling a sinus infection, upper respiratory infection and allergies. I am not ashamed to admit that I was absolutely terrified at the start line. There were people EVERYWHERE! And, honestly, I had no idea what race I was going to be doing when we started. I knew that if I was feeling crummy I could split at mile 1 and only do a 5K or split at mile 3 and do the quarter marathon. Somehow I found myself with a pace group that was 10 minutes better than my goal time and I was able to hang with them for the first 3 miles. So, when I hit the split, I had my best time EVER and was feeling pretty fantastic. I made the decision to just go for it! I finished at 3:32:16, which I am very happy with overall! My goal was 3:30:00, so I was only slightly off (which I blame on my potty break) and think it's a fantastic accomplishment given the fact that the evening before I could barely lift my head off the bed without getting nauseous. I also should tell you what an amazing play list composer I am. My music was spot on for keeping me energized and moving and I ended up only being one song short on my play list. Never underestimate the power of some silly teenie-bopper song or sexy Adam Levine to keep your butt moving!
Now, we're just a bit over 2 days shy of the full marathon. <Insert music to signify my upcoming dread and fear here> I now have all of these feelings of doubt running through my head and thoughts of how I could have probably trained harder. Lots of thoughts of how this was really a big, fat, dumb ole idea. One very definitive thought of "I'm never doing this again."
I've had butterflies all week. And nightmares. Lots of nightmares. Have you seen that car commercial where the girl walks through the empty parking lot, all sweaty and sunburned with her medal and bib on, and gets in the car (looking like she's in a lot of pain) and has the message from her mom saying "Congratulations Amy! You did it!"? Well, I'm having nightmares because I'm going to be that girl. Sweaty. Sunburned. And even scarier is knowing the amount of pain that is going to be coming. The panic that has been swirling around me all week has been overwhelming.
But, really, it comes down to this. I did train. I actually trained pretty well. Yeah, I didn't follow that dumb plan down to the letter, but what I can say without a doubt is that I have walked more over the past 5 months than I ever thought I could. It's kind of weird to now think, "Oh, I need to go for a walk. Uh.... I'll do 10 miles. No biggie." When 5 months ago a normal walk would've been one, maybe two miles. Now, we can do 10 and still say, "Huh, I don't even think I'm exerting myself." I may actually be in the best shape that I've been in the past 5 years.
So, I've decided today that there's a new attitude. No more dread. No more fear. No more panic. We got this. We're ready. Yeah, it's scary. But, lots of things are. One of my new favorite quotes has become, "Do one thing everyday that scares you" (Eleanor Roosevelt). When you combine that with my other favorite quote, "Nothing is impossible, the very word itself says, I'm Possible" (Audrey Hepburn), it's a motivational recipe for success. So, I may be scared (terrified is probably a better choice of words actually) but I'm not going to let that fear get in my head. Life is too short and you never know what is going to happen to cause it to change in an instant. We have to do the things we dream of now, because it may be too late if we wait. And, what I've come to learn is that it's so much sweeter when it's the things that frighten us most or the things that no one thinks we can do. So, here we go....it's time to push our limits :)
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