Confession of Sorts and 21km Run!
Today I ran my second 21km route outside! Due to technical difficulties with my stop watch I don’t have my exact time but it was around 3:10. With a baby running 21km is difficult on your own, but when your spouse is running the same half-marathon you are it takes a lot of planning to get both of us to run 21km in one day. We have a road that is 10.6km long so if you run from our house to the end and back, so do that twice and you have our half-marathon. But with a baby at home, we do it differently. First Steve, my husband, runs the route once, with the dog. He calls me when he’s 1km from home (at least he tries to, today I was on the phone when he tried to) and I bundle up myself, and the baby and get her in the stroller, he drops off the dog (poor thing is exausted after 10km) and we head out together for the route. Then when we get back home he takes our baby inside to bottle feed her pumped milk, and shower, and play with her, while I head out for the second loop of my route. He left the house at 1:30pm and I got back at 6:10pm so you can see how long it takes this way but we manage to get it in even with a 5 month old little one!
So you may be wondering what my confession is. Lately a lot of people have been complimenting me on my running and my routes and how well I’m doing from not having run at all in December to what I do now. This sometimes makes me feel like a bit of a fraud. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do all the runs I say, the distances and the times it takes but I feel like most people would consider what I do jogging not running. On the treadmill I can do 45 minutes of 5-5.5 miles per hour no problem, and yes that is running, but outside I only do 6.6-7.1km per hour (4.1-4.4 miles per hour) which isn’t exactly all that fast. Now I know that most of the time I am pushing a baby in a car seat in a stroller and will honestly say that I can’t push myself past 75% effort for fear that if I fall and/or lose control of the stroller she’ll get hurt, but it’s still a slower pace. Personally I consider it running at a comfortable pace. Today on my run I went the same speed for the first 45 minutes/5.3km so that’s a big deal to me at least.
There now you all know the truth and if you want to compliment my “runs” I won’t feel guilty or sneaky about it. Oh yah, and I ate my running cookie while I ran and didn’t almost pass out like last time! 🙂 Go me!
Yeah to you is right!
Speed means nothing….run, jog or walk…the fact that you are committed to your goal is what matters. You are doing AWESOME!!!
Your comment on my post about being healthy with the time we are given really hit home for me….thanks! My dad and grandmother both died in their early fifties (50 & 53) so I always have that in the back of my mine….that is only 13 years away and that is the big motivator for me to get healthy and stay healthy!!! So thanks again for your wise words…I am going to write them down and post them on the fridge.
As a new mom as well I love your system! I think it’s great that your hubby supports you and you figure out a way for both of you to run and make it work! Fantastic really! As for your “confession” you still amaze me! I can’t even walk that far and you’re an inspiration to me, seriously. way to go 🙂
As I always say: Anything faster then walking, is running 🙂
If I’m bouncing while I’m ‘walking’ then I consider myself to be running; and yes, there are 60 year old women out there that can speedwalk faster then I can run, but I’m fine with that.