August 1-15: Push Your Limits // Sports

Me and Sports have been in an on-and-off-relationship my entire life. When I was younger I used to dance and do horse riding. Working out was easy then, because it was fun. Until it got to the point where I spend almost four hours a day on sports, got completely burned out from combining that with school and work, and quit both dancing and horse riding. Since then I’ve been going to the good ole gym with the rest of the world that is too uninspired to try something else.

[I wrote this introduction half a year ago, when I still planned to dedicate April to sports, but even though I live in Málaga now, it’s still valid.]

Luckily, Gran Canaria is a super sporty island. It probably has more sportswear stores than regular clothing stores and it’s full of people running, cycling, surfing, paddle boarding… you name it. And isn’t it always the case that when you’re considering to get yo shit together sports-wise, it’s all of sudden like the whole world works out and you don’t? A friend came to visit and her fiancé (who is, hello, 11 years older than me) spent his week here training daily for a triathlon. Oh, and he also ran a marathon the year before. Now I know myself well enough to know that I’ll probably nevernevernever be able to do something like that, but somehow running long distances has always been kinda attractive to me. Like I want to do that tooooo.

What better time to start working on sports after figuring out food last month? (I’m hoping to write an update about that soon.)

The Goal

[Fast forward to Present-Day Me in Málaga.] When the student is ready, the teacher arrives. So just when I was contemplating my Happiness Project and starting running again in August, a friend (also a beginner-runner) challenged me to run a half marathon in December. Twenty-one f*cking kilometers. But I just had my second mojito, so obviously I said yes.

Just to be clear, the goal is to run that half marathon and to survive. I’m not going to stress myself out trying to finish in less than two hours thank you very much.

Read more about all of my two-weekly goals for the rest of this year here.

Daily Habit

No surprise here: my daily habit is to work out every day. If it isn’t running, it will be yoga, a gym session, pilates, zumba, or anything else that makes me stronger and fitter. I’ve got four months to make it happen, so from now on, my sleep schedule and getting up early (when it’s still an acceptable 25 degrees outside) is more important than ever.

Resolution

If there’s an occasion to shop guilt-free, I’ll take it. Twenty-one kilometers require good shoes – not the ones I’ve been running on since the early Stone Age, and also not the ones I’ve grabbed from the shelves of a crowded outlet store because they were 70% off and looked cute. No.

I need to get a run analysis done and have some sporty guy tell me what shoes to buy. Since I’m writing this at the end of August, I’ve had this done already. Fortunately enough, the sporty guy in question – let’s call him half-marathon-in-01:12h-guy *mic drop* – had good news: I am not completely unfit to run a half marathon (I was kinda afraid he’d laugh and tell me to just forget about it), the shoes I have are quite fine already, and the ones I need are not ugly. Win-win-win.

Book Club

I didn’t think there would be any interesting books about running out there, when I stumbled upon Let Your Mind Run, a memoir by super runner Deena Kastor. It’s about the mind set part of running and how what really matters is what’s between your ears.

If you didn’t get your beach body ready in time for Summer this year either, IT’S NEVER TOO LATE. (Especially not here in Málaga where every day is beach day.) So come join me with your sports goals!

XX

Being a walking Nike ad in front of the supermercado, Benalmádena, Spain.

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