New Spring in My Step

After coming back from holidays and having a very relaxing couple of weeks with my family, albeit a very hot couple of weeks, I knew there was a downside.  As mentioned previously that was the fact that I had put a few kilos back on.  Now previously this would have been the end of the world, but not for the new me.  I had decided that after the slack and lazy lead up to the festive season, this year was going to be different.  Now you may think that putting weight on is hardly changing the way things had been in the past, but with the new goals and the will to achieve great things in 2013 I felt re-invigorated.

With setting my goals for 2013, which I listed in the previous post, this gives me something to shoot for throughout the year, whilst building in mini goals as each round progresses.  For me, these will not be something that I set out well in advance, but perhaps at the start of each round or as I see myself improving in different areas during a round. 

One of the goals I had set for myself this round was to run around the lake near my house at Sanctuary Lakes.  I had no idea how far this actually was and had planned to do it with a training partner Dayna for our week 4 milestone, but things did not happen as planned and then we were away for week 8 so not able to do so again.  I estimated this distance to be 8.5kms having ridden around it a few times in parts, but never done a full lap and calculated it. This week I decided that I might give it a go and if I was not able to complete it, I would go as far as I could and walk/run the remainder.  Now keep in mind that the most I have ever run in one non stop attempt was just over 5kms, so this was going to be a test, more mental than physical in my opinion.

I set off feeling apprehensive and also a little tired in the legs from our weekend session but looking forward to the challenge and conscious that I needed to maintain a slow and steady approach rather than my usual bull at a gate pace.  I find it hard to slow down my running pace (which in all honesty isn’t very quick)and conserve myself to make a decent distance but new it had to be the case today.  Thankfully it was not hot, but a little windy and overcast.  I set off at a pace I thought would be comfortable for a decent distance but after the first kilometre my Nike Running app told me I was doing a 6 min 17 pace.  There is no way I could maintain that for 8.5kms so I tried to slow it down more.  After 2kms I was running at 6min 20sec pace.  Seriously, surely I had slowed down more than that.  I still felt good but I can run 3km at that pace or a little quicker most times, but surely I would start to feel it after that if I didn’t slow down.  I tried my best to slow down and for the next few kms I was averaging 6 min 30sec pace and felt very good.  I got to what I believed to be the half way point at around 4km and was going great.  The best part now was that I knew I was on the home stretch.  I had run this part many times as part of my 5km run, so felt very comfortable and confident that I was going to do it.  The strangest feeling for me was that I was not struggling and felt I could keep going if I wanted to when I finished, but I was expecting the wheels to fall off after the 5-6km mark purely because I had not run that far before.

As I turned the last corner to head home I looked at my phone to see that I had just run 7.1kms in a time of 47:25 which is also the longest continuous time I have run for.  The best part was I knew I could keep going and I felt like a million dollars but I didn’t want to push myself and end up injured.

Nice little reward from my Nike Running App

That will be my next quest to build up to that scary 10km mark.  I need to saviour this moment and as Julie said to me, “8 months ago, did you think you would run this distance? No chance, you would have laughed at the thought.”  Which is 100% true.  Later that night I sent a tweet to Michelle Bridges and 12WBT spruking about my efforts, but more importantly thanking them for changing my life.  The response was “YOU changed your life, we are just along for the ride.”  How true is that.  Every single one of us on this program is making the change ourselves, we have had to make the conscious decision, I think we all forget that.  Michelle and the 12WBT team have provided the tools, but if we did not want to do it, it won’t happen.  I think that after hearing that it dawned on me that I need to actually listen to what I tell people on the forums and let it sink in.  You only get out of this program what you put in.  For me this has been a roller coaster the last 2 rounds but I have still lost 15 kilos in that time and I know I have transformed my body and mind, which is a lot more important than just dropping the weight.

Following on from that I decided I would try and ride to work yesterday.  I have never done this and was not sure of the exact distance but once again estimated it at around 35km each way.  It was in fact 34kms and due to traffic lights, pedestrians in the city and trying to find out exactly where I had to go it took me 1 hour and 32 mins to get to work.  The ride home was a little longer (only 10 mins) but I had to battle a horrid head wind and a buckled back wheel.  So for the day I managed to burn 2202 calories and ride 68 and a bit kms.  Not bad for a commute to work.

Half the days riding (this is the morning session)

To finish off I will add the current tally for my 2013 goals, which will be a regular thing in my blog now to keep me accountable.
270.46kms ridden (4729.54 to go)

34.56 kms ran (465.44 to go)

18 sessions trained with minimum 500 calories burnt, 1 not (295 to go)

Total calories burnt so far in 2013 – 15416 (Target of 182500 for 261 sessions of 500 and 52 SSS)

Using this to keep me accountable