10K, Busting Not an Option

The Running Goddess and I have been training for a 10K over the past 10 weeks. At the risk of sounding less than humble, I must say that we are an awesome team. We have faithfully trained at 5:15 am (yes, my friends who know that I am not exactly an early bird, that is AM) three days a week for the past ten weeks. We are now five runs away from our goal. We have only missed three training sessions, and none of them due to sleeping in; illness or injury only. And we made up two of those.

I used to run alone when I started way back in Toronto. I hated every step, but knew that it was essential to getting health and losing all the weight I put on living a workaholic/couch potato lifestyle. I didn't take it really seriously. Sometimes I sort of enjoyed myself, but mostly I endured the pain for the efficient cardio workout that it provided.

Last spring I muddled through a 5K training program. I repeated runs/training weeks often, afraid to move forward to running a whole 30 minutes without stopping. It wasn't until the summer when we were visiting family that I could let go of the watch and let LK push me to just go for it.

That made all the difference. Suddenly I felt like a real runner rather than a plodder. I could get my body moving for 30 minutes! After a lifetime of feeling like a complete non-athlete, it was life changing. I was finally an athlete.

Not a professional athlete by any means, but an athlete all the same.

Then I got sick in the fall and lost it all. I went from striving to reach a new goal of 40 minute runs to thankful I could talk and breathe without fits of coughing that lasted minutes. The craziness of two teachers working, living, and mentoring together hit (which we still have not recovered from) and sealed the coffin on the gains I made last spring and summer.

Then in January, the Goddess and I started skiing home from school a couple of days a week. We loved the social time we got, felt fabulous after a 40 minute ski across the lakes, and were really de-stressed from work on our ski-days. As the ski season drew to a premature close this year we were sad to let go of those benefits. So we started to run together.

10 weeks later, here we are. We both are amazed at how far we have come. I have reached a level of cardio fitness that I have never had in my life. I am determined that this time nothing will destroy what we have worked so hard to build.

Tomorrow is my 37th birthday. I am taking some stock as 40 seems very close. Do I need to show myself that I am not old by setting a BEHAG goal for 40? Right now I feel like I can do almost anything I set my mind to.

So, I am dreaming and wondering... marathon, triathlon, or something completely different?