First, let's get the excuses out of the way. Cold, rainy weather…check. Christmas and New Years holidays…check. Spending too much time on Facebook and the Internet in general…double check!
The result: Not a lick of running for two weeks. Writing that is almost as embarrassing as posting my gut photo.
OK, so it's a new year and time for renewed action!
When my final class ended last night at 10:00pm, a nagging voice in my head told me that I should run when I got home. But the little devil on my other shoulder told me that it was already so late, and the weather was too cold, and I hadn't eaten dinner yet, and besides, tomorrow I'd have more energy….
Faced with this dilemma, I turned to my coworker Nick, who's also training, for some words of encouragement and motivation. I can't really remember what he said now, but whatever it was it did the trick. As soon as I got home I quickly changed into my running gear and bolted out the door, careful not to turn on the PC, grab a snack, or do anything else that might stop me.
I assumed that, after two weeks without any running, I would have lost the endurance that I'd built up. Surprisingly, I hadn't. In fact, I ran my best time since the beginning of training.
Instead of my usual 3 minutes run/2 minutes walk routine, I jogged 800m, no matter how long it took, followed by 1 minute of walking. After 35 minutes I wasn't completely exhausted and felt that I could continue for quite awhile longer. However, since I was out of practice I stuck to the 35 minutes as indicated in my schedule. Just knowing that I could have continued gave me renewed motivation and more assurance that it's definitely possible for me to complete the 21k in less than 3 hours.
I've added another column below—Minutes per Km—as an aid to track my progress.
| Week | Date | Weight | Waist | Run | Minutes per Km |
| 4 years ago | 04/15/2008 (Arrival in Taiwan) | 70 kg (155 lbs) | 84 cm (33") | -- | |
| 1 | 12/03/2012 | 75.5 kg (166 lbs) | 94 cm (37") | 30 minutes 3 km | 10 |
| 12/05/12 | 30 minutes 3 km | 10 | |||
| 12/08/12 | -- [heavy rain] | ||||
| 2 | 12/10/12 | 30 minutes 3 km | 10 | ||
| 12/12/12 | 30 minutes 3 km | 10 | |||
| 12/15/12 | 76.5 kg (169 lbs) +1 kg | 91 cm (36") -3 cm | 57 minutes 6.5 km | 8.7 | |
| 3 | 12/17/12 | 33 minutes 4 km | 8.2 | ||
| 12/19/12 | 31 minutes 4 km | 7.7 | |||
| 12/22/12 | 76.3 kg (168 lbs) -0.2 kg | 91 cm (36") | 40 minutes 6 km | 6.6 | |
| 4 | 12/23~12/29 | -- | -- | -- | |
| 5 | 12/30~1/5/2013 | -- | -- | -- | |
| 6 | 12/07/13 | 75.9 kg (167 lbs) -0.6 kg | 91 cm (36") | 35 minutes 5.4 km | 6.4 |
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