My Running Journey

I have started, stopped, and deleted parts of this post for the last 3 days. But here is where I am with my thoughts today...

My family has a history of heart problems. From grandparents to great aunts and uncles to even my dad. When I was a senior in high school my dad went into the hospital for a "routine" heart procedure and ended up in the ICU for weeks and weeks. I was too dumb and self centered to realize how bad things could have been at the time, but now I know my dad was very lucky to come home from the hospital. After that, I started to educate myself on nutrition. I started to watch what I ate. I read more each year about things that were good and bad for my body. I started trying to incorporate exercise in my daily schedule. I joined a gym.

I enjoy running and have done several 5Ks with friends, but recently, I signed up to run a half marathon. I've never run that far ever. My runs are usually short just to get in some cardio before doing weights. But I decided I wanted to mark a half marathon off my bucket list in 2014. I printed out a plan and I got started. The beginning was easy. One mile here, add a half mile, add a quarter mile, etc. Not bad. I started paying more attention to my HRM, and then I got frustrated. I get out of my target heart rate zone after not running that long. I give myself a little more room than my Polar does, but I still have to scale back more than I want to. I want to reach my distance goals and also do it quickly, but my body just apparently isn't ready for that. Last week I was so frustrated I had pretty much decided that I just wasn't going to run the half. I wasn't even going to attempt it because there is just no way I can be ready by then (April 26th). I've since gotten over my little tantrum and decided I'm just going to have to do my best. Whatever that is. I got into this running and fitness thing because of my heart. Because of my family history with our hearts. Giving up is just not an option. That's not part of my 2014.

I definitely won't be the first person to finish that half, but I will finish it. That is my goal for my first half. Just finish it. Then if I want to keep going, I can keep training to do it faster.

Question for my runner friends, how closely do you watch you HRM? Do you have a point where you have to slow it down? Did you go through the same things when you started?

In other news, today is day 24 of my Advocare 24 day Challenge. Once my head hits my pillow tonight, I will have reached my big January goal for this year. I plan on doing a little recap of my experience and of course share my results either tomorrow or early next week. Plus I am thinking about doing a little Advocare incentive for February if anyone is interested.

How's everyone else's goals going? Tomorrow is the end of the month!