Today I did something that I thought was impossible, and the funny thing is it isn't the first time this month.
I realised a few months back that May was going to be pretty filled with running events. I signed on for True Grit with my sisters way back in January, realising at the time it would be a back to back weekend with the Mothers Day Classic the next day. I signed on for the Color Run a few weeks later, and I had already decided that I would be doing my first Half marathon for the year in May, I just couldn't decide whether it would be the Greenbelt or the Barossa, the former on the first weekend in May, the latter the last. I don't know at what point decided I would do both, and round out May with 5 events, and I am not sure when exactly my big sister decided she'd do it too... but all of a sudden we had Mad May on our hands.
I started with a bang and did my first impossible thing on the first weekend.
I have mentioned before that I have been running off and on (mostly on) since I was 13, I have always believed myself to be a slow runner and in fact it's not even been until last year that I have actually considered myself a "runner". For a long time cracking 5 min kms seemed like an impossiblity, 5.30 has long been a comfortable speed for me. At some point since I completed my first marathon last year my speed has improved. I didn't realise just how much until that first weekend in May. Tatum offered to run with me as a support, she'd done a big run the day before and didn't feel the need to do a PB. I grabbed the opportunity, hoping I'd at least crack two hours. I ran it in 1 hour 44 mins and 24 secs, smashing over 12 mins off my pb. I ran an average of under 5min kms for the whole distance. I was still shaking my head in disbelief at that this morning. There were major high fives and hugs between my sister and I, her support had been amazing, and I guess somewhere in all of that I had forgotten that my legs actually did that running.
The next weekend on the Saturday we tackled True Grit. We completed it in around 1:50 and I was truely knackered and very battered and bruised when I crawled into bed that night. I believed there was no way I would beat my previous best time for the Mother's Day Classic the next day.....but I did, only by about half a minute. But there you have it another "impossible" thing made possible.
The next weekend was a bit of a rest with the Color Run being a short distance that I covered with Luke and the girls in tow. It was a beautiful morning. I must admit though, despite the "rest" I had been feeling pretty tired out this week.
Fast forward to this morning and I had told Luke that I would be happy with anything under 2hrs, because I was running "by myself" this time. Don't get me wrong, I always intended to give a good go of it, I don't enter anything with any other intention. But any runner will tell you that you have your good runs and your bad runs, and I assumed this morning wouldn't be great. I was feeling tired and I was aware that my support runner was going for her PB this morning and I would be doing this one "on my own", and as I said before, I had really forgotten that it had been my own legs that had run those other "impossible" races.
I am waiting on the official time, but it would seem that I crossed the finish line in 1 hour 42 minutes and some seconds this morning. I think it might be time for me to start paying to attention to Lewis Carroll a little more and believing in the impossible.... after all, if you put in the hard work in any area of your life, good things really do happen.
