~Life~

Life is good! Well the last months has been very busy. Some of you may know that I am going to be running the Auckland Adidas half Marathon on November 2nd. Wow it has arrived very quickly only 4.5 weeks to go! Most of you know that I am not a runner & have never had the passion or desire to do such a thing. But over the last year I have came to realize that I am going to have this body God has given me for only a short while & I am going to put it to good use. :) My boyfriend David ran the whole Marathon in 2006 so he has inspired me to do this.

It is a funny story (at least to me) about how I decided to enter the Half Marathon. In February of this year my work entered this "Fun Run" called "Around the Bays." We all got T-shirts made that said "Viva Dental" & casually joked about all of us running it together & who would actually be able to run the whole 8ks. I didn't give it much thought though. The day of the "Fun run" I had came back from being a leader at a youth camp on a Sunday morning. I got out of the last day of camp to do the run & got to miss out on all the clean up haha :) But it was a long night & I only got about 5 hrs of sleep with 8 12 year old girls in my cabin I was lucky to have gotten that. The next morning I drove to Davids house to pick him up (he was doing the "Fun Run" with us as well) we went straight to the race to meet everyone there & lined up at the start. There were thousands of people running it so it took us about 10 min to even cross the Start line, but off we went. I was planning on running the first little bit then walking the rest when I got tired, which I thought would only take about 10 min at the most. But David decided to challenge me and said "If you can run the whole way with out walking I will take you out to a really nice dinner tonight" I thought that was a really good deal because I love going out for nice dinners. So I put my mind to it that I wasn't going to stop the whole way! I was running with one of the doctors I work with Shelley, she kept me going & we seemed to have had the same running pace. I made it all they way 1 hour later without walking! Yay! I was so excited that I did it! I thought I was going to die though! HA! I was so puffed. After the race David did take me out to dinner. He was very proud of me.

The next week at work Shelley & I started joking with our patients (while we were bragging that we had ran the whole 8ks) that we would enter the Half Marathon. We both said "Yea Right" but after a few weeks went by I had decided that I wanted to start setting some long term goals. I couldn't get the Half Marathon out of my head so I thought maybe I really will do it, it will take persistence, dedication, & hard work but I really wanted to do something long term that I could work towards. At that stage it was 7 months away & I though I had heaps of time to get into shape & train. I told Shelley what I had decided to do and at first she just laughed at me then she saw that I was serious & thought well if you can do it mate so can I. So that was it, we decided that week & entered (payed $110-never thought I would pay someone so that I could run) Haha!

It has been a long few months on the running side. I hated it at first, and I could barley run 20 min without dieing. David kept telling me it would get better. He is so encouraging though, always reminding me that the best training for running IS Running! It has been a bit slow at times but I'm really picking up the pace with my training now. Trying to run about 4 times a week. Last Saturday I ran 12ks & I felt great. It took me 1 hour 15min. I'm not getting as puffed anymore just learning how to keep a good pace & it more a mental training now. Some days I can't wait to go for a run & other days David has to drag me out running. But I'm actually very excited for it & hope its not to hard. I have been told that it is a very hilly run so I know it will be challenging. I get to run over the Harbour Bridge at about 13k (half way through the race) it's about 1k up hill the whole time but it will feel so good to come down the other side. I will definitely be posting another Blog about the race when it's over. So till then...wish me luck!