Training is going well. I’m into Week Three of my training plan for the full marathon and feel pretty great. In addition to the wonderful support that I receive from the many RMA (Running Mums Australia) ladies that live or visit my area, I am lucky enough to have a great social running group who I run a long run with each Sunday, as well as Saturday parkrun.
We have been building up the kilometres at a conversational pace and I attribute most of my endurance to these sessions. After looking at my schedule last week and realising that my hubby would be away over the weekend, in addition to my speed, strength and my run coaching client sessions, I completed a mid-week long run (13km with hills) and focused mainly on my technique and cadence.
During our usual parkrun chats on Saturday, my awesome friends offered to alternate who would push my daughter in the pram so that I could still get to my Sunday long run. How awesome is that?! Us Running Mums are pretty determined and I’m lucky my girl thinks it’s a treat to go “dark running” with her torch. We ran 18km and I had to giggle when my friend Peter (who is one of the runners that will accompany me at the Sunshine Coast Marathon) announced that he had a whole new respect for pram pushing runners. It’s harder than it looks! I was a little envious of my friend Damien who breezed up the Moffat Beach hills while pushing the pram at about 5min kilometre pace! At the completion of the run, my daughter, Delilah stated, “That was a long way to the coffee shop!”
The hype of our fellow runners at the Gold Coast Marathon was extremely motivating and we were thinking of them the whole way, patiently waiting for updates (and then jumping on the live tracking at home, post run!) It made me proud to think that last year I hobbled my way through the Gold Coast event, and this year, I am uninjured and feeling strong.
This week has been all about getting my goals out to the universe! I have an A, B & C goals.
A – Sub 4hr finish
B- PB Sub 4hr 19min (which I set during the 50km Ultra last year).
C – my 5th full marathon finish.
Have you set your goals yet? It is definitely time to “put them out there!”
I am looking forward to seeing my fellow local runners at the Sunshine Coast Run Series #4 on Saturday at the University of the Sunshine Coast! Until next time…. Happy running!
Hi Kassandra
Very inspirational story. I too live on the Sunshine Coast & would love to run with a group. I have been doing half marathons & will be doing the Sunshine Coast. I mainly train by myself which is ok but sometimes I think it would be good to be pushed instead of just plodding along at 5min/k.
Might see you on the track good luck.