Nineties supermodel Linda Evange
lista once said she wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10k. Smug bitch, everyone thought. I too won’t get out of bed for anything less than 10k. Kilometres that is, not dollars. The difference is, I know it’s an unhealthy, unhelpful attitude, and one I’m trying to correct.
I’m a slow-burning kind of runner. Unhurried, steady, and I’ll need a couple of hours. It’s time-consuming and worse, it’s not doing a thing to get me back into my skinny jeans.
I should be doing interval training sessions, sprints, short’n’sharp runs. Those are the things that will get my heart pumping, improve fitness and burn fat. The thing is, those runs? They’re hard.
When my alarm goes to do a leisurely pre-work 13km jog, I think: “yes, lovely, let’s roll”.
When my alarm goes off to do an 8km fartlek run (bursts of sprinting and jogging) and I think: “nooooo! Bed. So Nice”. I roll over and go back to sleep.
It’s hard to overcome this way of thinking. Running is my happy place and why would I want to spoil it by adding pain? Oh right, the skinny jeans.
OK, so running Jo Style is better than sitting on the couch. But really, the 12+ hours I spend running each week could be more efficiently squeezed into 6 hours if only I worked harder. I wouldn’t have to get up so early, and heck, I might even develop speed for race days.
And so I’ve signed up for the 8km Powerade Challenge. Throughout May and June you can run the 8km waterfront course and time yourself with a personal timing chip wristband. Your time is recorded online and potentially Facebook. I’m scared. I will be slow. It may hurt. It will be public.
But hey, at least I’ll be getting out of bed for less than 10k. And that’s something, innit?
runningwithabook 