I am a runner

Why we do the things we do

Since my teen years I have always been somewhat active. I played handball in school, then soccer in the two last years of high school. I always enjoyed rollerblading also in my teens. As an adult, I wasn’t a fan of the gym, ever, but had some good attempts where I enjoyed it for a while. I learned to ski and I learned to climb, which are things I love to do.

One thing I never thought I would do, though, was running. And then I signed up to a obstacle race (Spartan Race) with some work friends, and for that I would have to run 21k, besides of course, going through the obstacles. It was November 2017 when we signed up for the August 2018 race, so I thought perhaps being able to run would be helpful.

A friend suggested a couch to 5k program, which I slowly started working through. I decided that, once I could run 1k uninterrupted, I would go to a running shoe shop and get a pair of running shoes. Anyway, that was January 2018.

I participated in some obstacle races as a preparation, but the one I was practicing for never happened because of a hurricane that happened that week, that year, in Hawaii, where the race would have taken place. But I continued to run.

In 2019 I got pregnant with Lucia, and after a few months I could no longer run. So I stopped. I restarted running after she was born, but I had loads of pelvic pain, so I stopped again and went into PT to heal my pelvic floor, just in time to be pregnant again!

Last year, when we decided to move to Zurich again, Mark signed up to run a half marathon, and I decided to sign up to run a 10k. I had never ran 10k in my life. I started practicing for that in October, and the race would be April 23. Running postpartum ain’t no joke.

I completed the 10k race a few weeks ago. I was slower than I would have liked (I wanted to complete the race under 1:15 but really I wanted to do it under 1:10. I finished in 1:11:56) and I had to walk some stretches on Kilometre 9. The sense of accomplishment was phenomenal, regardless of these mishaps. I felt great physically, as I haven’t felt in a long time.

While preparing for the race, one of the things I did with my coach (Runkeeper coach) was to set an intention for my workouts. For me it was always self-care. But after the race was over, I still needed self-care of course, but my motivation wasn’t there anymore. Why was that?

So I decided to pick up another challenge. I want to run my fastest yet 5k. And then today I went for my run, my first practice towards my fastest 5k and BOOM, there was she! My motivation was back. It felt very gratifying. And then I understood. It is about challenging myself to do things I wasn’t capable of doing before, and while at it, have time for myself, my self-care time, which is much needed to clear my head and nurture my body.

Did you reach a goal recently? What’s a challenge you’re working towards? Why do you do it?