Running, Racing and Reading

Photo Credit: Julian Bialowas

It's been too long since I blogged about my running. It's caused by a combination of a few things. Like I'll write about a run, read it back then think "Who the heck cares what I felt 1km into my 3.2km run?"

Well, upon the suggestion of one of my run friends, I'm reading ALL of Kathryn's blog posts over at her 'Boring Run Blog'. She is hilarious and inspiring and sometimes I just want to tweet her and be like "Seriously Kathryn, you're awesome." Then I don't.. because I feel like that would be awkward.

But I digress... I realized recently that there IS someone who cares how I felt 1km into that 3.2km run. Future me.


I'm on a journey, and YES - I want to take you along. However, I want to remember what it was like while my LONG RUNS are 5kms. I want to see how far I've come. I want to remember those terrible runs so that I can celebrate the great ones. So, if you want to read along with Future Nikki, PLEASE STAY. If you don't care about my runs, PLEASE... for your own sanity, GO.


So I took a bit of a break over the holidays. I went for lazy walks that week instead of runs. I didn't do any cross training. I ate whatever I wanted (and I wanted the worst foods. HA!). I gained close to 5lbs back. The worse part was my first run back was so very painful. It was with #yyjrunclub. We do 5kms and I made the mistake of deciding to drink the night before, and not go to bed until 4am.

I'm a positive person, however... I have to say, #yyjrunclub sees me at my very worse. I'm not even close to being a "morning person", and exercise isn't the most glamorous way to showcase yourself.

Hungover, tired, but determined to switch back to "routine" I got my butt out of bed and to our meeting place for 9:30am. The run on the way out, I ran with Melanie (who is also awesome). That poor woman. I just complained the WHOLE WAY. I ran slow, but it really only prolonged the pain.
When we got to the turn around point I thought I might throw up. I was NOT doing well.
It was awesome on the way back though. We waited for the rest of the group and we "ran it in" together. I probably complained that whole time too. I can't remember because, honestly, I was trying to focus on not losing whatever was in my stomach.

It was so hard, it hurt, it was terrible and yet: Awesome. I did it.

EXCITING NEWS!!

This weekend (Sunday January 13th) I'M RUNNING MY FIRST TIMED RACE! It is 8km. I agreed to do this race before I had ever run that far. Because I'm crazy like that. However, now I've run that far a few times... and I should be able to do it :)
My goal: FINISH!
My secret goal?: Get in under an hour. We'll see though. I haven't done that yet... so I'm not going to be disappointed if it doesn't happen.

I'll let you know how it goes!