Accomplishment

I have lots of goals that I want to achieve - personal, business and physical.

This morning, I worked on my physical goal.  I've been training for the Lady Speedstick Half Marathon in St. Pete.  It takes place November 18th, the day after my birthday.

I don't talk about it often... in fact, I never speak of it with my friends because the last time I trained for one, I got injured and when I finally healed, it was not enough time to finish my training in order to run the full 13.1 miles.

I felt like a complete failure.

The only person I talk about it with is my husband, Andre.  He's a pro in the marathon scene as far as I'm concerned.  He's got at least 5 or six full marathons under his belt.  Most of the time I'm proud of him, but there are also times I'm envious.  I want my own finisher medal and I want to have the sense of pride in doing something I never thought I could do.

I want to finish a half marathon and finish standing.

I've been training off and on for about two months.  It's been difficult to get a rhythm because every time I do, something comes up that takes me off track so that I feel like I have to start over again.  The hardest thing for me is not the running though, it's the cross training.  I haven't found something that I really enjoy doing on my off running days.

Today was a training run day for me.  I'm currently on a run/walk program and today called for running 1 minute, walking 3 minutes, (repeat).  When I'm I'm my treadmill, I do the opposite of running 3 minutes and walking 1 minute but as I've been reading more and more, they encourage you to do one workout a week outside.  I hate being outside in the heat.  I hate being outside even more when it's raining.  And I hate being outside even more so when it's raining and lightning.  Today, I was "blessed" with all three conditions.

As soon as we set off, I knew I didn't want to run.  It wasn't until I passed the 1/8 of a mile mark that I started to find my rhythm.  Andre asked me what the system was.  He remembered when years ago I was training for a 5K with another walk/run program, that there was a specific system I had to go by.  Today, I chucked out the system.  I told him I was just going to run until I wanted to walk and vice versa.

Running with Andre is hard.  Very hard.  He runs 5 miles daily with a long 13 mile run every Sunday.  Running for him is a breeze while for me, not so much.

Still, I took it slow and steady.  I didn't have a goal of running the whole thing, but that's what I ended up doing. 

I. RAN. THE. WHOLE. TWO. MILES!

That's actually pretty huge for me.  I haven't run a full one mile without stopping for years and here I was, finishing two.  It was pretty amazing and I find myself smiling right now, just thinking about it.

There was no medal at the end of today's run, only soaked clothing and shoes, but man, I sure felt like I received one.