It's been 10 years since the first time I joined the gym in 2013. Before then, I was a typical complacent youth who did not bother with my health. Took it for granted, you can say. I did sports in school because I had to and I remember feeling faint when I took my 2.4km IPPT in Primary 4, when I was 10. I also ate a lot of junk - actually, I just ate a lot of anything at all. Any effort to watch my diet and exercise more was due to vanity - problems with how my body looked and wanting to change it (always wanting to lose weight). I engaged in swimming (my gfs and I would do group swim sessions), plenty (relative!) of walking (I'd stop at a bus-stop near home and walked home) - and while I knew the science behind weight-loss (who doesn't?), not trying hard to eat clean never resulted in good results. Truth is, I was too greedy for my own good (still am). But I digress.
So yes, while I did try to stay active with rock-climbing/ gym/ random runs; my life's been pretty busy with pregnancies (two) and breastfeeding (1 year per kid) taking up a total of approximately 32 months of my life in the last 4 years, not to forget motherhood occupied me on top of my full-time job for 4 years; let's just say it's been quite slipshod. I didn't have a programme at all.
This year, I started a new job. And as with changes, my routine changes and I try to find a way to put in some exercise. There's no gym near my work-place (that's not a preferred for me anyway cos I don't wish to commit $$, not now anyway with all the commitments I already have), but with a more flexible work-schedule, I discovered that I could run. In the morning, before work. In the early months, Jake would wake up at 5-6am. And I'd be awake with his crying/fussing anyway. So I thought – why not. Bring him out for a stroll. I could jog with him in his pram. And I did that.
The start point (now that I'm re-tracing my past entries) was my displeasure in my expanding waistline. And while we were not regular with our weekend runs then, we did do them sporadically. I also continued running with Jake in the mornings.
After a while, Jake's sleeping patterns changed (more frequent and long wakefulness between 3-5am) so he started sleeping in slightly later to about 7am. I still continued running, on my own. I think it was probably at this time that the husband signed up for his marathon, then I got
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| I run with my phone and I track my runs with an app. If you look at these old records, you can see that I have records from April all through. My distance started from about 3-4km and I progressed to 5-6km runs. |
I continued running one to three times alone each week. I enjoyed running, and felt guilty when I didn't. It gave me a clearer head and made me more focused. It had become a habit for me. It was during the weekly runs at MacRitchie that I started doing longer distances, in the last 3 months. I started with the half-trail run (about 5-6km); then in the last month progressed to the full trail run (10km). I also had my 10km-GE run that I did with my sister that added to my long-distrance training. So my training was twice a week with me clocking about 15km in a week. The longest run I did was the week before 1 December with me doing 12km.
My pace all through the year was about 6km. On performance day, I kept at it! It's amazing how the body works! I'm amazed and thrilled that I had the discipline to be consistent through the year. I remember feeling tired and lazy on some days, but I got up anyway. I remember reading a quote somewhere "I really regretted that workout. - No one" and that's so true! Part of my motivation was vanity, part of it was habit, the most bit of it was how I wanted to be prepared for my run. It really was something I was working towards.
To end off, here are some better pics of me during my first half-marathon.
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| Yay. One where I don't look like a dodo! |
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| Not a great picture of me with the watermark, but yes, that is Victorious me! |
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