Believe in you…..

I have been struggling a lot lately with my feelings of wether or not I can accomplish things. Hey, I just ran a full marathon just over a month ago and I don't know why my brain is so stuffed up that it doesn't believe that I can accomplish something I put my heart and soul into. Something is seriously wrong there.

Just after my marathon my friend asked me if I would do a half marathon that was yesterday. I stupidly signed up for it as I was still on a runners high and forgot about it until this week when the date was looming.

There had been no training for a half, actually there has hardly been any running since the full, only a few 10kms here and there and a few other slow runs thrown in for good measure, but none the less I said I would do it and before I knew it it was two days before the race.

I thought I should treat this just as a fun event and not too serious. I did enjoy carb loading and resting the few days before (as I always do) but I was SO anxious. I think because I feared that I wouldn't finish. After all I was still recovering from a marathon and I was CRAZY to think that I could run and run well, a half marathon 5 weeks out. But I went in with the view that I would take it easy and just run and finish.

Come race day I was excited, not the nervous wreck I was the days leading up and the only thing that worried me is that I got my period the night before the race and I had been sooooo tired leading up that I wondered if I could even finish. After all I hadn't run more than 10k since the marathon and this was 21.1km.

I met a lovely member of my Facebook running group and was running with my friend Luisa and her friend Alex. Luisa inspired me to run. This was her FOURTH half for the hear after having a really tough year. If she could run after what she has been through, I certainly could do it.

We lined up and the gun took ages to go off. There was some kind of hold up and it made me so nervous. I just wanted to get it over and done with already. The gun went off and Luisa, Alex and I took off. I had decided that I wanted to go out at an easy pace and then try and run a negative split and I didn't really have a time in mind except to see the finish. At about the 10k mark I decided no, I don't want to just finish this race, I want to smash it so i kicked it into gear. I really wanted to beat my previous half time. Something in my head told me to go for it and that I CAN and so I did.

The funniest thing happened as we were running, I opened my zip slightly from my fuel belt to grab a jellybean and out flew a BRIGHT ORANGE tampon. I said to Alex…."well, there goes my tampon" and it was so funny. We had a chuckle and even the girl next to us said "I hope you have one in!"….Oh my goodness, what a scream, and how embarrassing. And seriously, I almost stopped to pick it up if it wasn't for the fact that I wanted to smash this race, I would have hahaha. BRIGHT ORANGE I tell you!!

I lost Alex somewhere after the 14k Mark as I grabbed a drink and so I didn't have my little pacing buddy anymore, so I relied on my garmin to keep me above pace. Everytime it beeped to say below pace I surged to keep above and I was not going to go below. I managed to keep it there until the finish which was pretty amazing running into ANZ stadium and to see that I managed to beat my previous time by about 30 seconds, especially so close to running my marathon.

No matter how much I dissect it all I see is that I can do things I never thought I could. Running frees me. I may not be the fastest but I know when I want it I will go after it and I will achieve it. I believe in myself so much more now than I ever did.

Do you believe in yourself?

Have you had an embarrassing running moment?