In November last year, I was running 10km, I had reached my goal and was feeling great. Better than great! Absolutely on top of the world!
But then I stopped. An infected toenail meant that it hurt to run, so I stopped. What should have been a small break led to two months of not running. My fitness suffered, but my motivation and belief in my abilities suffered much more. I stopped being motivated in all my exercise. I did not stop everything, but I felt stagnant. Unmotivated. Uninspired. It was not a nice place to be.
Then a couple of days ago I heard an interview on the radio with aerial skier and Olympian Alisa Camplin. When she started she was not even a skier, she was a gymnast but decided she could have a chance at succeeding in aerial skiing. So she wrote out a list of goals for the following year, and went about working towards those goals. Each year she revised those goals and kept on going, eventually winning gold in 2002 and bronze in 2006. Her motto is NO REGRETS. Do everything you have to do to succeed so that you won’t ever have to think “what if…..”
That evening, I sat and wrote a list of my goals for 2013. I need to run again. I need to feel elated as I did when I ran 10km. But this time I am setting my sights higher.
This year I am going to run a marathon.
I don’t care if I am starting at the beginning again. I take responsibility for the fact that I stopped running, for my fitness declining, for my ability to only run 2km at the moment (yes, I did say my fitness has suffered!!). I take responsibility for where I am now. I did it, I can’t blame anyone else. But I am starting again. I have a list of training goals that take me back to 10km, then to a half marathon, and then eventually to a full marathon. It will take effort and determination. It will take over six months. It may take injury management, but I will do what I can to make it in one piece.
I am so excited! I hope you will join me on my journey, with all its slow steep inclines, with a few fast downhills, and hopefully with some amazing scenery along the way.
Happy travels
xx
