Ok guys, it’s been forever since I have posted and A LOT has happened since February. I’ve been able to keep my promise to myself and nailed most of my goals I placed for building myself back up to training. I wasn’t able to do the 10K I wanted to, but I have kept pushing myself and feel confident in my new abilities. Strength training/yoga/HITT workouts carried me through most of the year with minimal running, so when it was time to start training again in August, I was ready! Took a few weeks to get back into running long, but all the strength training I did made my legs strong and able to handle the endurance. I also was able to complete my first Tour de Pink – a bike ride dedicated to helping raise awareness for breast cancer. The team I was on helped raise over $30,000 dollars!! This was an amazing group of women that I was so honored to have been apart of and to ride with. It was truly an amazing day. We rode just over 63 miles. Amazing!
Flash forward to today, I am 8 weeks out from my 4th marathon. I am so excited! This will be my first one that isn’t the Houston marathon, and like mentioned previously, my first time I won’t be seriously training through the holidays. I’ve had some bumps along the way, everyone knows a training cycle isn’t complete without a few weeks of life happening and disrupting what you thought was the PERFECT plan. It happens. Burnout happens, sickness happens, injuries, putting your goals to the side to take care of others happens, LIFE HAPPENS. And that is OK! Learning to let go of the idea of perfection has helped me enjoy this process more and I know that I will still be ready when my toes reach the start line. The only thing I have control of is my reactions and making sure I still put one foot in front of the other and thankfully I am still doing that.
Since I have had a few weeks of life happenings, I needed something to help motivate me to get out and get that awesome long run I’ve been without. I made a spontaneous decision, with the help of some pep talks from my lovely boyfriend and another good friend of mine, to sign up for a race this weekend. It’s the 10 for Texas in the Woodlands. I am planned to have 10 miles at race pace with my long run of 17 miles this weekend, so what better way to get the 10 in, then race it? I have planned to run a few warm up miles and then run the remaining after the race as a cool down. For me, sometimes I need that taste of competition to fire me back into focusing on my goals.
What do you do when you lose focus? What are some ways that you keep your stress down or how do you handle life when it throws to much at you? I’d love to hear your thoughts and stories!
Happy Miles,
Rachel ❤
Next up: How not eating enough, too much stress and not enough sleep can completely wreck your goals and your health. (aka how I totally didn’t check myself and wrecked myself)
Eat.Bike.Run. 