I’m nursing a bit of a hangover today guys. Worse than that, I’m sitting at Coolangatta Airport nursing a hangover. Not exactly the best place to be when you’re feeling like what you actually need is a cuddle, 5L of water and an extra 10 hours sleep. But hey, at least I’ve had an excellent weekend.
I’ve spent the last couple of days up in sunny Queensland for the Gold Coast Airport Marathon Running Festival… not the actual marathon (that’s an event for future-Jess) this year I just did the 10km.
This running festival is one of my faves on the calendar (after the City2Surf). It’s an easy, mostly flat course, and we always have a huge Grafton contingent come up to compete. This year my bro and I both did the 10km, and my ma and sister-in-law came along as the official cheer squad – even more impressive when you consider that race day was also my sister-in-law’s birthday, and she got up at 4:30am to trek to the start line with us anyway. #legend
I was feeling a little underprepared for this year’s race – in fact, I spent most of the first half of this year feeling totally over running and really struggling to find the motivation to get out on the road. Luckily I re-discovered my mojo a few weeks back and started to feel like maybe a PB was within reach after all. I put my number out to the universe (45mins or a 4.30/km) before proceeding to freak out about it, decide I was unlikely to hit it and revising it to 47mins.
Way to trust yourself Robinson.
Basically I was being a big wuss and giving myself an excuse if I didn’t meet my goal. What I forgot for a little while there was that it’s not necessarily meeting your goal that’s the important part – it’s setting goals in the first place, working towards them, giving it everything and being able to walk away at the end of the day knowing that you did absolutely everything in your power to reach those goals.
So the good news is that this story has a happy ending. My body stayed pain-free throughout the race and I came home in 44.43, which was a decent PB for me. So yes, I reached my goal. But more than that, I remembered why we need to set goals, and why not reaching those goals isn’t the end of the world – just a learning experience and something to work towards in future.
p.s Special shout out to my brother, who absolutely kicked my ass and finished in 40.55.
p.p.s Another special shout out to the girl responsible for my hangover today – thanks for having a birthday yesterday Keat, without it I may never have known the joy – and subsequent pain – of a Spiced Amy cocktail. Now somebody get me a bed.
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