Want to Run a 10K? You Can Do It!

May 8, 2019   5 Comments

Plenty of us are great at setting goals. It is the achieving them that is the problem.

I started on my long distance running journey about 4 years ago and I wrote about my first achievement here: This 46 Year old Mother of Two Ran Her First 5K on Sunday.

I was super proud of 5K as I was never a runner and it seemed like 3 miles was FAR. I continued to try to run and wrote about my struggles in this post: The Truth about Couch to 5K.

My biggest problem was that I had was that my left calf muscle started to cramp every time I would run.

The calf muscle was a chronic injury that I couldn’t figure out. What do you do when you are stuck? Ask for help!

The help came in the form of a running coach, Wendy, and a running buddy, Peter. They are also the cast of Peter Pan. (I get to be Tinkerbell or Captain Hook depending on my mood)

Wendy teaches a practice called Chi Running and it forced me to learn something that I didn’t have - form! I thought our bodies knew how to run like they know how to walk. At least for me, that was an incorrect assumption.

My body could run but not well without learning some technique. Peter, who had a chronic heel injury, and I shared lessons with Wendy and learned how to run together. It was Peter that inspired me to try 10K - twice a 5K!!

We learned about running cadence, stride, posture, and staying relaxed. It was pretty much the opposite of the way I had been running before and so it took a while to get the hang of it.

I did 6 months of training 2-3 per week in the winter here in Massachusetts to get it done. As you can see in the above photo, I also learned how to fly (look at my feet) with no wings attached.

Did I think I could do it? No! Did I find it easy? No! Did I try to quit multiple times? Yes!!

Did I cry on the phone to Wendy? Absolutely.

But I kept going.

I managed to learn how to run a whole 6.1 miles and my calf muscle didn’t hurt (or any other muscle) while I was running. After I finished, my body was sore but not too bad because I had worked up to it.

Every month, I added more mileage. November 3.5, December 4.0, January 4.5, February 5.0, March 5.5, April 6.0 - till I was ready.

It felt so good to accomplish something new at almost 50 years old and as you can tell from the photos, I had a good race.

I wish for you that you find a goal, get some help, and go for it. You feel so much more awake when you are working on something for yourself.

Have any of you tried to run 5K or 10K? or a marathon? How did it go?

Other posts you might like:

---

The Truth About Couch to 5K

This is my dog, Milo, but it could have been me a year ago – resting on my couch....

---

This 46 Year Old Mother of Two Ran Her First 5K on Sunday

This is a photo of my best friend, Laura, and I before we ran a 5K on Sunday. It was my first 5K....