I can run

Last weekend I ran 12km. Mostly. I mean, I power-walked up a couple of hills (it was probably faster than jogging at the time), but for the most part I ran. I had no idea I had the capacity to run 12km, and yet I did it and it was awesome.

What it took for me to run 12km:

Some lovely friends to want to run with me, I do like lovely friends, and have discovered I exercise because there’s more people for me to hang out with (love hanging out with people!)

An event with 40,000 people in it for exposure, excitement, atmosphere – and running bibs, timing tags that go on your shoes, people on loud speakers revving you up, and loud music to get you in the mood (and people, there were lots of people!)

Exercise clothes (yes, going back to post on Heartbreak, it is obvious that I like to look hot), a chance to wear super tight, silky fabric clothes in colours like fluorescent purple (a colour that would be on my ‘best colours to wear’ chart BUT that you can’t really get away with without giving other people a head-ache, unless you are running) (and lots of people, wearing exercise clothes, looking generally buff and fit and smily – at least at the beginning)

Bootcamp – I got fit, mostly by running shorter distances, up many a hills and doing interval and weight training. I have two fabulous personal trainers (I know I sound like I’m from Hollywood, but actually it just so happens I train with 2 different people, at their training places – I don’t have two personal trainers who come to my mansion daily). Before running 12km for the first time I had only ever run about 5km tops. Then we did a practice run, and then the real thing. And I could do it. I didn’t get puffed, but I did get some funny toe cramps, and moments of thinking it was still a REALLY LONG WAY til the end, but I did it. I don’t want to be able to run 12km every week, once or twice a year is good for me, but to know I can do it, that is the best thing.

I got to drive to the race destination for 4.5 hours in a car with one of the afore-mentioned lovely friends with NO KIDS!! We worked out it has been at least 8 years since we spent that amount of time alone together to just chat. Even if I didn’t run this would have made the 4.5 hour one way trip worth it! We didn’t even stop once on the way – no toilet stops, snack stops, discussions at the roadhouse over how many things are reasonable to buy when they cost 4 times the normal amount of money and have no nutritional value, no fighting in the back of the car, no threatening to stop if the fighting in the back of the car doesn’t cease, no-one getting car sick or bored or having issues with the portable DVD player. In fact we also didn’t stop talking. That was totally mint!!

And in the end, the person who did it was me. And yes some part of her likes that she is getting fit, and gets to wear hot exercise clobber, and gets to hang out with my lovelies but in the end you just get in the zone/state/flow and put one leg in front of the other, and 12km turns into nothing. Except a cool thing you can tick off the list of “Cool things I’ve done”. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeooow…..