I am not a runner. I imagine that this is glaringly obvious to those who know me in real life, and to anyone who has witnessed my occasional struggle along the Wellington waterfront. But in the interests of total honesty with you, the lovely people of the internet, I feel that this disclaimer is necessary. So. Where was I?
Ah yes. I hate running.
So it was with some trepidation this morning that I set off on my first run (read: run/walk/embarrassingly public struggle with my own body) in a few weeks. And for the first few minutes, I felt fine. Sadly, the first few minutes were also spent warming up at a brisk walking pace. What followed was roughly twenty minutes of humiliation, where my limbs moved with all the grace of a newborn foal and my face did its best to imitate that of a rabid animal. The experience was unpleasant, to say the least. And I'm not sure if I've ever felt more relieved than when I finished, rattling breaths causing people to look behind them in horror as if hearing a Dementor approaching. But for some reason, this is something I want to do again. In fact, I've even decided that I'd quite like to do it on a regular basis. (WHY???)
The thing is, fitness is in my blood. Not literally of course, otherwise a run that totaled 27 minutes wouldn't have been so hard for me. But genealogically. You see, I come from a family of fitness freaks. And I don't say this lightly. My parents are a personal trainer and a fitness assessor. It is literally their job to be fit. Somehow, my body missed that memo when I was living at home. After injuring my knee at the tender age of fourteen, I pretty much stopped playing all sports, and had only the occasional trip to our gym to keep me in what should have been tip top shape, but in all honesty was more the shape of a Tip Top ice cream (I suspect this was a result of how many I ate). And the gym was fine. I loved the cross-training aspect, and it was incredibly social, even introducing me to one of my now best friends (hey Tyler). But when I moved away from home, it all of a sudden became a lot more difficult to motivate myself to train. Particularly when I didn't have anything to train for. (The lack of a personal trainer breathing down my neck was likely also a factor). But I digress.
I've attempted to run many times over the years. Usually (and I'm not proud of this), my 'running kicks' will start when I'm being an absolutely miserable slob, marathoning tv shows or movies, and one of the cool main characters goes out for a run and all of a sudden gets their life in order. (I will admit that after recently seeing Divergent, the amount of runs I went for did increase for about a week, as did the number of Ellie Goulding songs on my running playlist). But I want to reach a point where this isn't the only thing that motivates me. So, in the spirit of my last blog post, I've decided to set some goals, and the first one is this:
To compete in and complete the 2014 Wellington Tough Guy and Gal Challenge, in a time of less than 90:00.
Why this event? Well. In 2008, my friend Paige asked me if I'd be interested in competing in this challenge with her family. In the interests of getting out of New Plymouth for the weekend, and showing my dad that I was totally capable of running 6K, I agreed, and eventually went on to complete the race in roughly an hour and fifty minutes (I think). I've always wanted to see what my time would be like if I were to attempt this event again (especially given that I walked much of the distance the first time round), and after suggesting to my flatmates that we enter together, I decided that, even if they wanted to back out, I wouldn't. So as of this week I'll be signing up for 6K's of mud, sweat and tears (ha! see what I did there? Ahhhh... apologies, I waited this whole post to work that joke in), and beginning some serious training, in the hopes that I don't make a complete fool of myself come the 27th of July.
(Although as the recipient of the 'Most Likely To... Make An Idiot of Herself On Stage' Award at my high school graduation, public humiliation seems to be something of a given for me).
Anyway, having voiced my good intentions here on the internet, we'll see how this public accountability works in helping me train.
Until next time folks!
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