When plans crash and burn

Sometimes things just don't work out the way we want them to. Not everything can always go our ways I guess, because what fun would life be if it was always easy? (Trick question.. That would probably be great.) anyways, without the shitty things that happen, and the road blocks along the way, we wouldn't learn or gain anything. (I will explain the point to this later on.. Keep reading!)

I've been training for 3 months now for the Hypothermic Half marathon, January 17, and last week (stupidly) thought I would be working, so I convinced Kirk (well.. not really convinced cause he's always down for a gruelling/long run) anyways, I asked Kirk if he would like to do the half marathon with me a week before instead (plus were both pretty broke so saving $80 was another argument for running it early).

Either way, I was feeling pretty disappointed that I couldn't make it to the race (Ps.. I found out that I'm not actually working, opps.. We're still will not be entering though, were poor haha). So we figured we would go and run the same route we would have been taking during the race!

Luckily the entire trail was clear except for some snow half way (for about 6km). The temperature was fairly mild at only just below 0, so it was the perfect day for a long run.

We packed the camelbak, stashing Gu and shot bloks, did a quick warm up, started the tunes and our tracking watches, then we were on our way.

We maintained a pace around 6:00-6:30 The route was absolutely gorgeous and winded past multiple lakes, all while remaining completely flat. A great trail for PRs!

We hit the 10km mark at just over an hour, which was exciting because I was hoping to finish in under 2:30. However, shortly after was when my hip pain started (again, ugh) and we hit the first section of unpaved road with snow/ice. Neither of us had spikes and it slowed us down quite a bit, keeping our average pace at around 7:00/km.

We reached the turn around point and walked for the first time for a minute while we quickly ate some chocolate Gu, drank water and continued on our way (Btw, having a camelbak is a lifesaver).

Kirk was really pushing me near the end, we ran our quickest km of the entire half, at around 6:00/km.

It was so painful, I may have told Kirk he better run fast cause I was gonna catch up and kick his ass.. Haha I can't be held accountable for the things I say while run-suffering.

We finished the 21.1km at 2:33:58.

At first I was slightly disappointed that we didn't finish in under 2 and a half hours, like I'd hoped, but then I realized, there's 1 of 2 ways I can let this affect me. Either I can see it as a failure (pretty shitty way to look at it..) OR I can use this positively, and learn from it. I know more about my limits now and what kind of pace I can currently maintain for long distances, and also, I now know that I'm fully capable of emptying the tank with a couple fast kilometres toward the finish line.

You're always capable of more.

We can either take our struggles and find a positive within them, or ruin ourselves with stress over the negatives.

For this (non competitive) half marathon, I am going to look at the positives:

- even though I wasn't able to race the actual half marathon, I still ran the same distance and route anyways. After all, why put 3 months of hard work to waste?

- I got to spend 2.5 hours with my amazing boyfriend, enjoying (almost) every minute ;)

- I learned even more about my long distance running ability.

- I beat my original half marathon time by almost 30 minutes!! Yes, you read that right. A half hour PR. How can you not be happy with that? Especially since the races were less than 4 months apart. Which tells me that I've obviously made some serious improvements on my pace!

- after realizing we burned off like 1700 calories.. We went and got Izzy's bagels.. Our tradition and obsession (except for relish veggie burgers.. Can't beat it!). The Runger was real.

Overall, it was a great run with a lot of positives! Also, it added fuel to my fire and I will complete my next 21.1km run in under 2 and a half hours.

I'm coming for you next year, Hypothermic Half!

But for now, on to training for my first ultra, April 30 in New Jersey!

Stay positive friends,

The Rural Runner