Sunday, August 22, 2010

First 1/2 marathon







Wow ... I can't believe I just did my first 1/2 marathon walk. My cousin registered and did the walk with me. We started at 6:30 am this morning and finished in 3 hours 27 minutes. We crossed the finish line together with the exact same times placing us 1st out of 127 women , 1st in our age category 30-39 and 2nd overall in the event !!!! I am so excited with the accomplishment, it is a huge milestone for me.
Although I am happy with what I did today, I am having reservations about the full marathon in 2 months. I'm glad that I decided to do the 21km because it's definietly put a few things into perspective. I will continue to train for the 42km focusing on walking it. I will let the Dr and the trainer decide when the time comes if I do the 42k or 10k. My heart is set on the 42k but I have to listen to my body. So far after the 21k today I don't feel too bad. A couple of big blisters on the bottoms of my feet and alittle bit of pain from the injury but not too bad. I will see how things play out over the next couple of days and evaluate. I'm hoping these horrible blisters won't keep me down for too long, I was just getting back into a training groove after my injury.


The support from everyone today was awesome and I am so thankful for everyone that continues to support me through email, facebook and running these races with me.

Cheers to a successful day !!!!












Thursday, August 12, 2010

Re-evaluation !!!

So I've had to do some re-evaluating of what this upcoming marathon is going to look like for me. Up until June when I suffered the injury I was focused on doing a run/walk to complete the marathon and so I was focused to try and complete it in a resonable time. But since the injury and coming to the realization that body is not meant for running I have decided to refocus my energy into walking the complete course. I needed to take a step back and remember why I started this whole journey in the first place and it wasn't to become some super athlete running a marathon. I was doing it because I suffer from arthritis and I wanted to be an inspiration to other people, raise money for an amazing cause and reach some personal physical goals. I feel like I got so wrapped up in the training and the athletic part of the journey I forgot about the rest. I remember saying at the begining of this journey that if it took me 8 hours to finish the marathon so be it but somewhere along the line I started to focus on time and my body has since reminded me that I need to re-evaluate. I have spent the last month revamping my training so that it involves walking only. All my hill training , long and short training are all involve walking and I am more consistent now. I have determined that I walk pretty darn fast, almost as fast as my slow run and my body is much happier. I don't think my foot is going to be completely happy until all the training and the marathon is done but hopefully with the orthodics, splinting and lots of ice it will hold out for a couple more months. So it might take me alittle longer to finish my upcoming races but I think that focusing my training on walking them only, I will have a better chance at actually being able to finish them.
It's been kinda cool doing my training while on vacation, new places to walk and new things to see. Definietly gets rid of the boredom factor..lol (sorry about the slowing blogging, we don't always have internet access so I will update when I can.)
Something has to be said for power walking on the transcanada highway with cars whizzing by and watching for things like bears in the thick bush on the other side..lol

I'm back in a better space now with the training after a bit of discouragement with the injury and although I still have pain, it's not quite as bad as when I'm trying to run.
Less than 2 weeks until the half marathon I will be doing in Edmonton, that will be a test as to where I am and what things will look like for Oct.

Stay tuned and thanks again for all your support. :-)