I hit my goal to run 60 miles in the month of March and then added 2.14 miles to complete a 100K challenge. I can't tell you how excited that I am for reaching this goal. I'm so proud of myself and I'm telling the whole world, or at least anyone who will listen(well read). You might be asking why I ran 100K in the month of March and the simple answer is .... because I set a goal. The reason why I set that goal goes back to the start of the year.
At the beginning of 2021, I set a very ambitious goal to run 500 miles through the year. Again you might be asking...Why? I guess the reason why is that I ran before I got pregnant and I kinda stopped or at least slowed down. Before I was pregnant I started to enjoy running and I was making progress. My runs were getting longer and my times were getting shorter. I was finally feeling like I could call myself a runner. I got pregnant and my running came to a halt. I wanted to get back to where I was before having Paige or even better than I was. I set an ambitious goal to help motivate me and keep me accountable. I record each run in my planner so I can keep an eye on my goal. Towards the end of February and realized that I was SO far behind. I noticed that as of February 21st I had only run 15.16 miles. Based on my loose plan, I should have run closer to 60 miles at that point. Once I realized how far behind I was I considered giving up. I felt deflated and like I was too far behind and it wasn't even worth trying. Then I stopped and realized that it was ONLY February. I had 10 more months to find ways to make up the miles. I reminded myself that I'm not someone who backs down from a challenge. I'm not someone who gives up on myself. If it is important to me I will fight for it. This was important to me. It was important to get this piece of my life back.
I slacked off in January and February and I needed to step it up in March. I decided to set a goal to run 60 miles in March. This seemed like a large number, basically, I had to run 2 miles each day. The only issue with this plan is that I could only take one day off. I knew that there was no way I was going to find a way to run every day. I'm realistic and I know that life happens. There were going to be days that I didn't feel like it, my allergies would bring me down, Paige would keep me up all night or I would have fun plans with a friend, and running 2 miles just wasn't going to happen. All of these things happened. I missed a few days here and there. I just never let it bring me down. I kept reminding myself that I would find a way to make it work. Sometimes that meant going on a longer run. I sometimes went for 2 runs in a day. I just made it work and I was pretty much on track and then I noticed a challenge in the Nike Run Club app to run 100K in the month of March. There was the mile conversion right next to it. 100K is equal to 62.14 miles. It was a no-brainer for me to bump up my goals by 2.14 miles. Saying I ran 100K sounds so much cooler than 60 miles. So that is what I did. I laced up my shoes, turned on my running playlist and I started to run.
I use the Nike Run Club app when I run. It keeps track of my runs, maps out my path, and shows me the times, all the standard stuff the all the other apps do. However, the reason why I keep using the Nike Run Club app is it provides guided runs. There are all sorts of guided runs in the app but the one I picked yesterday was the Inspired Run. It was a distance-based run just over 2 miles. I needed to run two miles so it was perfect. It was an amazing run that I wish I had found sooner. The coach talked about a few things that really helped me and kept me going. One of those things was the idea that you can inspire someone and not even know it. It gave me the inspiration to keep going not only in my current run but also in my year-long goal. There are so many people that I don't even know that inspire me, what if I am that person for someone else? What if someone sees me running past their house every day and they are inspired to put on their running shoes too? What if some stranger from the internet sees this blog post and is inspired to get back on track for one of their goals? I hope that one day I will inspire Paige to set hard goals and stick to them. I will never know if I inspire someone else but if there is a chance that I could well that is enough to keep me going.
All that to say I ran 100K in the month of March. It wasn't awful but my victory dance kinda was.