Back in January, two of my coworkers mentioned a 20k run they “survived”. It had a few things going for it; 1. Trails- when I was in my running prime, trails were more like “playing” than running so that got my whiskers twitching, and 2. Coastal breezes/fog. I hate running in heat.So when they said another one was coming up in March, I said to myself “Self, that’s the place you outta be!” and I signed up. My sister Debbie and sister in law Natalie also signed up. We started training – running the Couch to 5k program for a few weeks and then… life. I hate how you get on a program then something disrupts it and you’re off again.
There were a few starts/stops but we did try to hike hills and run as much as we could. When the last couple weeks preceding the race crept up, we were bombarded with “friends” telling us “oh, you’ll never make it” “You can’t do that- that’s way too far” and all sorts of non supportive things. Even my DH said that “you’re in for it if you do the 20k- you should have at least got an 11 mile hike under your belts beforehand”. UGH!!!!
You know what happened? We started believing them. We changed from the 20k to the 8k at the check in. Yes, the hills were steep and hard on us. But the hike was TOO SHORT. The hills ended and the next thing you know, we’re on the way back. We were so disappointed that we listened to people who doubted us instead of “Just Doing It”. I am not even sore today!!! DOUBLE UGH!
But that lack of support did something for us- we’re now going to prove every single one of those downers WRONG and we’re doing a run every month (except July and August- did i mention i hate running in heat!?). And we’re going to RUN. We’ve got April and May’s runs picked out and are looking for June’s. In October, we’re going to do a 10k Mud/Obstacle course. We’re using the Couch to 5k training for the first run and adding to that for the next. To hell with the downers!!!
