I need to get something off my chest... There's a lot of talk about body shaming. Ridiculing people for being what someone deems as "too fat." Another girl gets told to "eat a hamburger" because she's too thin. Seemingly no one is safe from bodyshaming, with each party staking their claim as the MOST RIGHT and refusing to view it from the other side's perspective. My views on the topic are quite lengthy and a subject for another day. Today I wanna vent to you about FOOD SHAMING. |
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So how did I do during my second week of training for my 25K?
Well, not as many runs as my first week. But perhaps more QUALITY than quantity... That's good right? I started running back when I was still living in Michigan. I love it and I'm thankful every day for having lived in a place where I could step out my door and go running for however many miles I felt like. Living in Michigan, out in the country, where all the streets are laid out in mile and half mile increments, it was always easy to set milestones on my runs, to know how far I had gone, and how far I had left to go before finally arriving back at my doorstep.
I had access to beautiful trails, covered in pine needles. Quiet, restful places that ran alongside creeks, with gentle slopes and trails that turned and curved through beautiful forests. I'm glad that that's where I got my start as a runner, because I'll tell you what, if I had started running after I'd moved to Tennessee? Well, that may have changed my entire disposition. We can call them "hills" or we can call them mountains, but I've run both here in Tennessee and have learned to love this gorgeous hilly country. And I've learned that they can make me a stronger, faster runner. So, I mentioned in my post last week that my next big adventure is to start training for a 25k. I have two in mind; one a trail race called The Black Warrior 25k and the other is the Fifth Third River Bank Run back in my hometown of Grand Rapids.
This will be my longest race to date, as a 25k is 15.5 miles, just a smidge longer than a half marathon. It's part of my short term planning in order to reach my goal of running a 50k. As much as I wanted to run a 50k this year, I just didn't put in the miles this summer for that to be a reasonable goal in the next few months. I spent so much of the first part of the year trying to recover from my hamstring injury and then playing it safe because of that that I just didn't do the work I needed to reach that goal. But that's the great thing about goals. Sometimes it's necessary to take a step back and reevaluate them. You don't necessarily have to give up on them, just change your time table. After a rather uneventful Thursday evening of coordinating with Van 1, getting the Michigan folk from Van 2 down safe and sound in to Nashville and one of the worst waiters in the history of Olive Garden, dawn finally started to break on Friday morning, and the incandescent glow of the orange Ragnar Start Line greeted us.
It was 7:00am on Friday morning, and I was headed out to begin my second attempt at #RagnarTN, after having injured myself during last year's attempt. Along with five Ragnar newbies, we were about to undertake an event that I have said before can be "life changing." So, #RagnarTN officially ended Saturday and overall, I was pretty pleased with it. After last year's hamstring debacle, I was thrilled to make it through this year's race without sustaining an injury. Considering I was still feeling the side effects of that hamstring injuries during Ragnar Trail Atlanta and Ragnar Trail West Virginia earlier in the year, I was super excited to come out of this Ragnar with no major aches and pains.
In fact, I don't think I've EVER felt so good post Ragnar! Which is why I am super excited that after this week of "recovery" I'm going to be starting my 25k training! The 25k is my stepping stone to the ultimate goal of running a 50k by the end of 2015. I'll hopefully be documenting my progress on this website as I progress towards my goal of becoming an "ultra runner." We'll see how 25k and 50k go, and then maybe consider longer distances. But for now, we're skipping marathons and going for the big time! Can't wait! So recently, I've been debating with myself about a couple of personal records, or PR's that have been set.
And mostly, I've decided to recognize them. But I still have debates about it with myself every now and then... I doubt their validity. It's one of those internal debates that rages on. Like if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, does it make a sound? Or what is the sound of one hand clapping? Anyone who's read my blog, or followed me on instagram or twitter would have noticed that I'm a pretty big fan of Ragnar Relay. I did two last year (Adirondacks and Tennessee) and have run two already this year (Atlanta Trail and West Virginia Trail) with a third (Tennessee) coming up in just over a week. But one of the most challenging things is trying to convince other people to also love Ragnar... And if they've never done it before, well... Then trying to explain Ragnar can be kind of confusing... Also known as the post I almost titled "I Will Wear Your Shirt." A few weeks ago, the following post shoed up in the facebook feed for one of my local running groups... I dunno about you guys, but I knew my answer to this one right away. Umm, yes please?!?
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