GO!

On Tuesday, May 15, I announced that I would be running a half marathon to raise money for the WUSC Student Refugee Program - a.k.a. the be all and end all of what I stand for as a human being. I struggled to run a kilometre at that point. That was almost 7 months ago. At this point, the furthest I've run is 17 km.

Ready...I am all packed. Set...I leave for Vegas tomorrow. Go...I run on Sunday.

This photo scares the crap out of me. I imagine little ol' me in that vast mass of people and cry a bit on the inside. Running alone for 21 km is one thing, running with that many people, shoulder to shoulder (for at least a little while) is another. My race number is 31298. My corral number is 31. My required finish time is 4:00:00. My goal all along has simply been to finish in that allotted time. As running got easier and my confidence greater, I realised I could very likely finish in 3:00:00. That, however, was before I injured my foot on November 13 at approximately 5:30 p.m. That was 2 and 1/2 weeks ago and I haven't actually run since then. I've done a few hour long elliptical runs and I am confident that my heart and lungs will hold out for the full 21 km. As for my foot carrying me through 21 pavement pounding kms, I'm not so sure.

I have a slip on tensor and a wrap tensor and sore foot or not, I'm doing this. My new goal is to stick it out running for 12 km (a little over half of the race). If, at that point, I need to walk, so be it.

I've raised almost $3200 for WUSC and I'm hoping to reach $5000 by the end of January. Perhaps once I prove to people that I have actually completed the run, they will be even more generous! Here's hoping!

21K for Change

Remember when...I was proud of 5K?!

As I hit lap 85 around the Shilo General Strange Hall (GSH) and realised that I was going to reach my goal of 100 laps (or 17km), I suddenly thought back to a time when I realised that I was going to reach my goal of 5km. I remembered how thrilled I was, so thrilled, in fact, that I called that particular blog post 5K MoFos and asked for a "whoop whoop!" That was back in June, a long and grueling 5 months ago. At this point, a.k.a 25 days until I run 21k, I am quite confident that I will complete the run in 3 hours. It took me 2 hours and 20 minutes to run 17km and I run an average 9-minute km so you do the math.

A 9-minute km isn't fast by any means. In fact, I shouldn't really call it running I guess; I should call it jogging, but to me it's running. I run as fast as I can to sustain myself for the length of time it requires to complete each goal. If that pace looks like jogging to you...just try and keep up! No one jogs a half marathon.

Everyone asks me if I am going to keep running after the half marathon and while there is a part of me that wants to say "yes, I can't wait to stop torturing my poor body," there is a bigger part of me that can't bear to just throw all of this progress away. Like I said, 5 months ago I struggled to run 5km and now when my training schedule says 5km, I scoff it off as an easy day! In fact anything less than 10km is typically...easy. Who'da thunk I'd ever be saying that!

If you're as impressed with me as I am with myself, you can donate here :)