It has been a long while since I posted here. But as you all know, life often gets in the way, and my life is particularly hectic as since March we haven't spent more than a month at the same place. So the schedule always changes, depending on where we are, what we do and who we are with. So while I have been bad with updating the blog, I tried to focus more on the doing than on the saying what I have done. There were ups and down, but I never stopped running altogether since February, and since July I have been running steady. I am now back to 12 -14 miles per week, and have added some speed work. The goal is to run a half marathon in November, so it quite motivating. I have found a good training programme and I really stick to it. Not only does it give me a plan to follow, but it also includes speed work, which I have never done before and seems to work wonders with me. It is hard work, but my pace has really improved and the runs that are not speed focused seem a lot easier. I also invested in a GPS watch, which allows me to watch my pace. So this morning I went out for a long run (6 miles), when most of my previous runs were 4 miles, but with speed work. I would usually have been a little daunted by the number, but this morning I was thinking "it might be 6 miles, but if I don't have to stick to a fast pace, I believe it'll be easier than my last speed run". And somehow it was. I was just running at an easy pace (9:30 / mile, which used to be my fast pace) and it wasn't that bad at all. The voice in my head just told me to stop once (some days she doesn't even talk to me anymore), and I just kept going, even though my legs were stiff and my butt muscles were sore. I just did.
Then I came back home and soaked myself in a nice hot bath to relax my poor muscles and I picked up an old issue of a running magazine, in which they were relating the story of Ben Davis, who went from morbidly obese to marathon and ironman runner. Ben made a cool video about his story that you can watch on youtube. It made me want to check out his website Bendoeslife where I found this very inspiring post that I wanted to share with you :
We run.
We run because we have to.
We run to go fast, and we run to go far.
We run to break the tape; we run just to finish.
We run for fun when no one’s around.
We run to get inverted V muscles above our kneecaps.
We run to get the regular V above our hips.
We run to clear our mind.
We run because we’re mad.
We run because we’re ecstatic.
We run because now we know what it feels to nod at another runner. We understand them, and they, us.
We run to lose weight.
We run to keep it off.
We run to eat cupcakes.
We run to eat crabcakes.
We run to be lions.
We run for cancer.
We run when others won’t.
We run and sometimes we hate it.
But we run and we always love it.
We run up hills and we run through puddles.
We run because it’s poetic.
We run because it’s bad ass.
We run while people sleep and we run because it helps us sleep.
We run because runners have better sex.
We run because once we have that medal, you can’t take it away.
We run because some of you don’t think we can.
We run.
And we run together.
