One Week To Go

By this time next Saturday I will have run my 10km Mudrun.  I will, I am quite sure, be thankful the whole experience is over – especially if it is as hot as today has turned out to be.  Today in my final long run for preparation I ran a new course that was 12km long and included many more hills than my 10km route of the last three weeks which was mostly a very gradual rise and fall of land.

It took me just slightly (25 seconds to be exact) longer than an hour to run and I did have enough at the end to really give it on the last 600 metres or so to try to make the time under an hour but it was just too great a distance to cover in under 40 seconds.

I’ve learned quite a bit about myself during this eight week long journey from ‘guy who hates running’ to ‘guy who knows now that running is something I can enjoy’.  Not the least of which is: I like to do better always.  When I ran the same courses I always wanted a better time than last the last run.  It seemed to me that it should only be reasonable that each time out would be faster since I am training to actually be faster and no less should be accepted.  That mindset really had me on a path to not like running very much.

I also learned however that I can trick my body into doing things that I never would have thought possible.  When I set out and ran my first 5km run I never would have thought that I’d be able to run 10 or 12km.  But now that I have run 12, it seems pretty reasonable that I could, if I so desired run 15 or 20km, not that I want to.

The running though has given me an appreciation of just how far I’ve come in a year.  By August 2010 I was no longer fat, but I was not in shape yet.  I had stripped my body back to the basic parts and was in the initial stages of building what I have now become.  If I had tried to run this far then I would have collapsed still I think, I would not have had the stamina to do it.  Now I can, after so many workouts at the gym, so my squats and wall jumps and sprints and stepping and oh so many other rigorous gym activities, I can run a 12km route and feel as though I can do more.

I am excited to do this race a week from now, to see what my body can do when there is a goal line, to see how far I can push to beat that guy that leaves the starting line at the same time.  I'm in this race to win, and while that may be a foolish goal to set on my first ever race, why aspire to anything less?