Hey everyone, like a month ago, I made this post about my decision to do DriTri and then a half marathon…

Today was benchmark day for the one mile at my studio. Since my post, I’ve been strength training and doing concerted run training to get my endurance up for the 5k portion.

And, well… tears today. So many tears. My previous benchmark was 16:49, and I fought hard to get under 17. But today… I planned to start out doing 3 min run/1 min walk intervals and just wanted a 16 min mile. I talked to coach before class, she encouraged me to try taking my walk interval down to 30 sec and see how it went. I started with weights today - always a good pre-run warm up for me. Then it was run time.

I set my interval timer up to keep me on track… and then I started. A minute 30 went by, I felt good. 3 minutes went by, I could keep going. 4 minutes, 5 minutes, 6 minutes… I was still running. My calves started burning and I decided to push for 7, then allow myself a walk break. I was at a half mile with 8 min on the clock. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that same sustained effort again, so I took it in the spurts I could manage. Finally I was coming up on the last quarter of a mile, calves burning but 12 min was on the clock. I knew I’d hit 16. I pushed my run to about .82, walked, and decided to go for an all out effort my last .15 of a mile. I I steadily increased my speed, sprinting the last .05 at 5.5 mph. I heard my coach yell, as I was at .97, that I was going to beat 15:30. And I finished at 15:27.

As I went to the challenge board to enter my time, I just started crying. I haven’t run 7 min straight since being in the midst of a brutal eating disorder in 2013 and running half marathons to lose weight. The meaning behind what I achieved today slammed into me and I couldn’t stop crying. Coach came over and asked if I was okay. I said it was just really emotional and she asked why. I briefly shared with her my eating disorder history, my road to reclaiming the half marathon, and I started crying more. And she said she was gonna cry too lol

Needless to say, this journey is emotional as hell. Just wanted to check in, I promised updates ❤️