Monday, July 09, 2007

Determining your strength and spirit

Hello hello,
Busy weekend I must say.
On Saturday up at 6:30 am and I went to the 47th annual Chinook Mall Stampede breakfast which was great, went to the brand new Sephora that has finally arrived in Calgary and purchased stuff (of course :)). Later on went to Transformers and loved it. Had lunch at Taco Bell and then out to dinner. Dinner was fabulous with D and her hubby from Ontario, my friend H and I.

The alarm went off at 4am on Sunday so I could get ready for the Alberta Jeep Half Marathon. I was counting down to this date with some fear. My training has been erractic, I'm not sure why. It was a combination of losing motivation and finding that I have a tough time motivating myself. I was pretty much training for this on my own which I've never had to do before. Alas I felt good about the race as I headed off. I started off with H, but then she got her mojo and started to run (way to go on her part - she's my hero). I continued to walk, keeping an eye on my Garmin to check my pace. I thought I was doing pretty well, when I got to the 10K marker I was at 1hr and 30min. At this point I realized there was no way I was making a 2:45 time, so my focus then became to just get to the finish. According to my Garmin I finished at 3hrs and 17min, which makes this my slowest time. Mind you it's only my 2nd half marathon and the first time was pooring rain. My pace was better than December's marathon.

I'm not disappointed, now I know what I can do with very little training. Next year will be a different story. I will be back next year and the mission is to train properly this time around. Hey I earned 15ap on Sunday.

I have to admit I'm happy it's over and now I can focus more on over all weight loss efforts. I'm not massively sore today so the good thing is I'm learning how to recover from races. The minute I got home I did a bit more stretching and immediately got into the tub with epsom salts. Had a nap and then walked down to the corner store to get a paper.

The past 4 days have been pathetic food wise so I need to battle down the hatches and get myself in gear. Thankfully the 100 day challenge starts on Wednesday so I have a couple of days to get on track. I did take a picture of myself front and back just in my underwear for the start of this challenge. This my plan: pictures once a month, measurements every two weeks, tracking 24/7.

I brought my digital camera today so I'll take a picture of the potato heads and post it tonight.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

2 comments:

marie said...

CONGRATS on finishing another half! nothing better than crossing a finish line :)

Marathon Someday said...

Congratulations, Cowgirl! I'm so proud of you! Your time doesn't matter - it's the fact that you made it the end. I'm so inspired and awestruck by you. Way to go!!!! yay!!!