It takes a village....

I`m 5 weeks into my BMO marathon training with the Running Room and today is the first day I really feel like I can do a sub-five hour marathon. by sub-five I mean 4.59.59! I`ll take it! We ran 20 kms (19.69 according to my watch, 21kms according to my friend Selina`s watch) and with a pace of 7.09. WOW! Seriously..that fast..amazing! If I can do that exact pace for the full marathon I can do it in 4 hours 55 minutes! Today included a few ass-burning hills (up and down!) from the Running Room on Cambie, to Prospect Point and back. Great run! We even saw (and I might have accidentally scared it away) a gorgeous owl just sitting in a tree watching all the runs pass by.

I`m even getting used to the gels. Today was the first day I didn`t bonk at the 18km marker. I felt good afterwards (hungry, but good) and still feel good. I`m a little tired but don`t feel like I did a 20km medium to hard run and yesterday did a 20km medium difficulty bike ride on the North Shore (lots of hills as well with that one!). Both of these I took off time, the ride I took of 12 minutes from the last time in November and the running I`m about 20 to 25 minutes faster than last year. It just makes the last two weeks of misery (bad two training weeks) feel ok and I`m feeling much stronger about doing the marathon in May as well as the IronMan in August.

I`ve decided that my new mantra is It Takes a Village.... because I`m lucky that I have so many active, fun, inclusive people in my life that it was pretty easy for me to come to the conclusion that I can`t do the training on my own for either event. Why not pick the brains of other people or train with other people that are better than me. It`s only going to improve my times, endurance, and will to succeed! Its going to take a village to raise me to be an Ironman contender and I no longer feel shame in that. I`m indeed lucky i have so many fantastic friends in my life that are very supportive of any of the stupid things I do, including some that come along for the ride (apparently its hard to say no to me, or at least that`s what some friends tell me!)

Next race, UBC Tri-Du! No where near ready for it, but, its a month away, I`m sure I`ll be fine!