I've run 1000km this year!

This year I decided to keep a record of the exercise I did. For running, I wrote down the distance and times of all my runs.

I found this to be really motivating as I could see how much I'd done each month, and I didn't want any month in the calendar to look empty after that!

I highlighted my runs in pink, which then made it easy to add up the distances at the end of each month. Once I started doing this, I saw I was close to 100km one month, so it spurred me on to run a little extra and reach that 100km mark in April! 

Then later in the year I added up each month and realised that I was going to be close to 1000km run over the course of the whole year.

WOW!

To me that sounds like a lot. It doesn't really mean anything, it is just a number, but quite a large number and I decided to make that my target for the end of the year, to run 1000km in one year.

I just did it!

My husband and kids came with me for a final 3km run yesterday so I could reach that 100km mark.

I'm quite amazed and proud that I've run so far. I don't know what I've run in previous years as I've never kept a record like this.

There are still a few days left in the year and I may run a few more kilometres too!

Do you keep a record of how far you run in a week? month? year?

Great Barrier Reef Half Marathon Race Report 2014

A few weeks ago I ran in the Great Barrier Reef half marathon in Port Douglas. I've done a few half marathons before but only as 'fun runs' where I didn't train and just ran a bit walked a bit.

This time I wanted to train and be able to run the whole way.

It was early November and very hot and humid - even at the start time of 6.30 am.

The run started with around 5 km along the beach - good hard sand and a beautiful setting. The course then turned in through the houses and out onto the main road out of town. Under a bridge and onto a track through the cane fields and back out onto a small road to the halfway turnaround point.  

Coming back the same way along the track to the main road into town, which we then followed alongside basically all the way back and finished by the beach again.

I was so pleased that I managed to run the whole way which was my goal. The last couple of kilometres I may have been faster to walk and run but that wasn't the point!  It was a hard slog mentally, to just keep going and not stop.

I'd only gone 17 km non-stop running in training, so when it got hard in the race before the 17 km mark, I kept telling myself I couldn't stop because I knew I'd done at least 17 km before. Then once I'd passed that mark, it was only 4 km to go, and out of 21 km, that's a short way, and I wouldn't let myself stop then. Good logic!

I've done 18 km trail runs before (see my train race report from a few weeks earlier). But that's hard in a different way as there are up and downhills and lots of concentration on where you're putting your feet, so you tend to think less about the 'keeping going' part.

In this half marathon race, it was a straightforward flat run, so mentally the tough part was to just keep going - there were few distractions from the hard slog!

I finished in a time of 2:09.28, which was 21st in my age category.

I'm pretty happy with that - and with the beautiful medal we got at the end, which is also a fridge magnet and a bottle opener!!

Now I'd like to try a half marathon race in winter when it's not quite so hot and humid!  And my new time goal is to go under 2 hours!

I'll be entering this race again in 2015.

It was so well organised, great to be a part of - a beautiful place to run, lovely running shirt and as I mentioned - a very cool medal!