Today I did my five-mile run/walk on the river; I did five miles and it took about 70 minutes, about a 14:00 minute mile, considering the air quality was awful and humidity had to be 186% I was happy with it.

Before I finish this inspiring message, I have to tell you about my conversation this morning before my run.  I do not own a belt, pouch, or anything that I can carry my stuff in while I run outside and I have found I do not like putting my keys, etc in my pockets.  This is how I solved that this morning –

Me:  “Hon, are you awake?”

My Husband: (laying in bed, eyes closed) “Yes.”

Me: “Do we still have a fanny pack lying around (I am talking 1990s fanny packs here) anywhere?”

My Husband: “How many do you need?”

Me: (thinking we have more than one!? I am ashamed) “Just the one.”

My Husband: “Does April need one?” (April is our 22-year-old daughter)

Me: “April probably does not even know what one is and if she does, she may not come with me if she knows I plan on wearing one, so no, she does not need one.”

My Husband: “Go downstairs and finish getting ready I will find one and bring it to you.  What color?”

Me:  Exiting room hanging and shaking my head.

*As of this afternoon I own a new belt, slim with a small pouch.

I had my daughter with me for the first time and that was exciting and motivational!  She has agreed to run the Princess Half with me so we are going to start training together.  Oh, a brief side note, I do not look anything like the woman running  in the photo, but I love the saying, to see what I look like running see my post from August 21st :).

In my last post I gave a lot of information about where I am in my running and how far I have come and how my training is progressing.  Today I want to talk about how awesome I feel about what I am doing!

When I started working at getting healthy I took on a personal trainer for about four weeks, the thing I dreaded most was ANY cardio.  Give me some weights I am fine, abs go for it, stretching yes!  But get on the treadmill, the bike, the elliptical??  Ugh!

In May I signed up to do a charity walk with my daughter on June 2nd.  I thought it was a 5K; turns out it was one mile but I walked 5K because I could.  While doing light training in May to walk this 5K I realized how much I was enjoying myself, feeling motivated by this goal I set for myself; and by the end of the 5K walk that day, I was hooked!  I immediately found a 5K in our city for the end of June and started training to do it as a run/walk.  Got that one under my belt and here I am training for my 3rd timed 5K in September, a 10K in October and a Half in February 2013.

How did I get here!?  It just seems so crazy!  On Thursday at the gym I had the treadmill up to 6-miles-per hour at one point and kept that pace for a bit, in May if someone would have told me I would do that I would not have believed them.  Today at the river I realized I had run my first .75 straight, all running, no walking!  Heck if someone would have told me that two weeks ago I would not have believed it.

I could give you another dozen or so of these revelations, but I am sure you get the point.  Any time the voice in your head says that you cannot do something, call it out as a liar, you got this, no reason to doubt it!

So this week my runs will consist of more short runs to gain speed and longer runs (adding a mile to get to six next Saturday) to gain stamina, by the time my Half gets here I will be running the whole thing, with one pit stop to take a picture with Sleeping Beauty in Magic Kingdom.

Couple of other things.  I purchased a Nike+ GPS watch today, so far I loved setting it up and I am taking out on my run tomorrow, I cannot wait!  Also, I broke up with my scale I feel amazing and I am doing good things for my body with activity and food, I will NOT let the scale talk to the liar in my head.

172 days smoke free and 173 more nights sleep before the Disney Princess Half Marathon.  “More powerful than the will to win is the courage to begin.”   -Unknown Author