After my first run, I was super motivated and with the help of my book and coach I built a training plan. When I understood I should train 6 out of 7 days a week, I started to have some serious doubts!
However 5 days into grey thoughts "I kind of saw the light!"
This is what happened:
Day 1: Running 65 min with no stops
I have a mental block that I will never rum more than 45min in one go, so when I got to minute 52 with no stops I was shocked by being wrong!
Day 2: Upper body conditioning
The experts say you need good abs, back and arms to complete the race with no injuries and as I haven't done much work for such a long time it felt nice to say hello to some long forgotten muscles.
Day 3: High Intensity training.
The name is scary and for 50 min I had no clue of what I was going to put myself through apart from a sequence of 6 powerful moves repeated 2x/4x/6x/8x/10x/12x and then again 12x/10x/8x/6x/4x/2x with 15sec recovery in-between.
5 minutes into it and I start thinking how could I make the moves easier, when it hit me! I can't remember if it was during the jumping jacks or the jumping squads but I got a flash backs to PE lessons in high school and started smiling. It got me thinking about old friends that I haven't seen in a long time, our conversations and the hopes we had. I was so much into my thoughts that it got me through the full 50 minutes. I finished exhausted, but happy and shocked again, I actually made it 100%!
Day 4: Legs & Bum Conditioning
I completed all exercises but the muscle pain was quite intensive and it brought back my doubts, "do I really have what it takes to go through this?"
Day 5: Mini sprints alternated with jogging for 50 min
Honestly ... I thought this was the day I was going to prove I couldn't do this. How on earth could I hold 50 min on the run and add in sprints!?! And if I couldn't do this obviously a marathon was out of question!!!! But again I was going for a shocking thought. At minute 25 my body felt strong and it was still holding well at 45 but my thoughts were trying to find a reason to quit!
And then again I had an enlightening moment (and what some of you told me last week)
"Lesson number 2: You can only run a marathon if you believe you can!"
Week 2 starts tomorrow!
I leave you with my new favourite quotes and a picture of my Zurich running view branded by my beloved shoes!
