Moments

Well, as many of you know, being a diabetic meant I was categorized in the high-priority group for the H1N1 Vaccine. After pressure from family and friends, last Friday, I finally lined up for my shot. They warned of side effects such as fatigue but I felt fine.

So, the next day, I headed out to attempt my farthest distance run yet - 29km!

Let's just put it this way - despite the gorgeous weather, my positive attitude, and an absolute desire to do it, I only made it 4km before I felt like I couldn't lift my foot one more time. I am 100% blaming this one on the H1N1 Vaccine. I gave myself a few days off (minus some squats and lunges, as apparently I need to work on my butt muscles to avoid my one debilitating pain mid-run), but kept the 29km close by.

Yesterday, I woke up, wrote out my route, and mentally prepared myself with 3 degrees of goals, as I always do.

I'm not sure why I do this, but even during my mid-week runs I will say things to myself like 'I will be happy if I make it to that lamppost, happier if I make it to the stop sign, happiest if I make it to the next street'. As a non-runner, I have found that it's important to make goals about just getting somewhere, or just doing something, rather than about how fast I manage to do it.

So, this was the first mental mantra I repeated to myself yesterday morning "It's about finishing, not finishing fast". I paced myself, not pushing too hard to run any particular duration or speed, and allowed myself to walk without feeling bad about it, whenever I needed to.

My 3 degrees of goals were simple -

Good: Make it farther than ever before, meaning at least 19km

Better: Pass the Half-Marathon (21km) distance, as this was a previous goal that I didn't succeed at

Best: Actually finish the 29km scheduled.

Let's just put it out there now - I did all three.

I felt great as I passed the spot on Paisley where I had given up on Saturday and knew that I would do well, but I don't know that I believed I would manage the whole distance.

Luckily, Jeff was at work, so when I started to bottom out around 22-23km, I wasn't able to just climb in the car. I did, however, take a break at his mom's work, waiting for a 2nd wind before my last big hill and 8km. She offered me the keys to her van to drive home. I refused.

A kilometre later I was mad at myself for refusing lol.

Within my first kilometre, I almost got hit by a car leaving the Beer Store (that explains a lot, I know), and within my last 2 kilometres it happened again. Do people not look both ways before pulling out anymore? Do you not see me in my bright teal jacket running towards you? Don't try and beat me, you'll just look like an ass.

Somewhere between 10-15km, I lost my gloves. This wasn't a problem at first as my hands get really hot while running, and make the rest of me really hot. But around the time I discovered them gone, the wind had picked up, and my hands were frozen.

I paused on about 4 benches/curbs throughout the run - at my halfway point between Highway 24 and Conservation Road, at the Grange Plaza on Victoria, on a guardrail at College and Victoria, and a bus stop by the Village on the Arboretum on Stone. It felt good though and gave my brain a brief rest before continuing on.

But, the point of today is moments - high moments and low moments. That's the greatest experience within a distance run. The moment when you look behind you and realize, yep, that was a really big hill. The low moment when you realize that you had about 10 huge uphills and only 2 baby downhills the whole run.

The high moments - when you realize you've beaten one of those goals you set out, or when you pass a friend's house that just months ago you swore you couldn't run to. Or when you think you can't run another second in the last 5km, and yet you run for a further burst, and faster. The moments where you get yourself up off the curb and keep on going - when you realize that the blister you'd felt forming 20km ago has miraculously vanished, and you will finish this run.

And my ultimate favourite high moment - crossing that last street to finish your run. I try really hard in those moments to not jump up in the air, or fall to my knees in tears, as I'm sure the cars waiting at the stoplight will be extremely nervous.

Of course, there are low moments as well - like when you go into a busy Tim Hortons to fill up your water bottle and can't fit it in the sink so have to wait in line 20 minutes so they will fill it up. Although not really lol. Low moments are really just a high moment waiting to be born. For me, they are that minute sitting on the curb at the Grange Plaza before I go to bug Jeff's mom and hope she will talk me out of finishing the run (became a high when I kept going). Or the moment sitting on the guardrail at Victoria and College and highly considered cutting the run short and just running down College instead of up to Stone and down that. I turned that into a high by realizing it's just 2km difference, what's the point of not doing it?

Lows are the moments where your back aches, your toes feel like they are falling off, and you are all out of energy chomps and you realize - if Jeff were here right now, I would have given up.

Highs are the moments when you realize that, all alone, without anyone telling you to keep going but yourself, you keep going.

It's a good point for life - low moments are just high moments waiting to be born.

I'd like to take one more paragraph to acknowledge 2 more high moments that happened this week in terms of fundraising!

Thank you to Mr. Angevaare, from Bert Angevaare Ltd in Peterborough for sponsoring Jeff and I with a $100 donation! That's huge and incredibly appreciated

And a big thank you to Miss Ward and the Crestwood Secondary School Equity Committee who hosted a dance on October 30 and donated $2 from every entry to our cause! They have donated a total of $600 to our marathon!

So, in one week, we have almost knocked another $1,000 off of our final sprint! Thank you to everyone who has donated and thank you to those who are soon to donate to help us make our last $3,500!