Accepting reality: no half marathon for me next year

One key strategy to achieve our goals is, first and foremost, creating realistic expectations. If we don’t set ATTAINABLE goals, our sense of frustration for ‘failing’ will send us back in the spiral of negativity we had before starting, and we might just give up at a certain point.

Before starting this journey last November, I told myself: next year I am going to run for the ‘Dam to Dam’ half marathon. It’s a half marathon event held every September between Amsterdam and Zaandam, a 16,1 km run, and I had (I still have) an immense desire to participate. After all, we have to set goals, right? So I told myself, perhaps with too much ambition, ‘next September I am going to run that half marathon and I’m going to be proud of myself’.

Well, I wasn’t taking into account how attainable it would be. My current status is: five minutes of run and I want to kill myself/never do it again. I know it gets better with time, but…

Yesterday I REALLY wanted to run, so I went. I managed to run for 10 minutes, slowly but consistently. Nevertheless I was experiencing severe pain in my ankles, not a simple tendon pain to be fixed with better shoes: every step I’d take I’d feel like a knife was stuck in my bones, like if all my weight was impacting my ankles to the point it was getting dangerous.

After consulting with my trainer, he confirmed that, at this stage, running is absolutely to be avoided as it would put my ankles, knees and back at risk due to the repeated impact of my bodyweight on every juncture. The conclusion: I need to lose at least 10 kg before I can start running again, and by that point, it will be too late to start my half marathon training.

It seems that, at least for now, I’ll have to postpone my half marathon goals: it wasn’t attainable to begin with, and the last thing I want is to injure myself and slow down with my training. It feels like shit as I love running, I truly saw myself running that half marathon next year, but my health (long term) comes first. I’ll stick to other cardio training, hiit and weightlifting, and we’ll see my progress in three months from now.

Stay tuned for more!