Intro

So... I'm 30 years old. I'm a Montrealer. I am a self-confessed procrastinator.

I'm a runner.

Now... It wasn't always like that. Back in the old days (a bit less than a year ago), I was wondering if that theory about imagining that you were working out really helped to get you into shape. I closed my eyes and imagined I was running along a river. I could hear the sound of the breeze in my face, my steady breathing... Then I opened my eyes cuz I was exhausted.

Then Sonya happened.

The first time I saw Sonya she was peeking at me from behind a mutual friend of ours. I was almost ready to turn to her and go "What?!" but she knocked me out with her amazing smile that spreads to her eyes like a wave on a warm caribbean beach. I was hooked.

During that week, her and our friend mentionned to me that they were suscribing to a gym. Maybe I would like to join them? I had been through pulmonary embolism a year prior to that and had gained about 30 pounds (so I was around 175 lbs) due to various factors. I thought about a million ways to turn them down but ultimately, I said okay.

It was the best okay I've ever said in my life. And the first of many I would say during that year.

Shortly before Christmas of 2010, Sonya and I were working out with weights when I mentionned I would love to try boxing. I am a tall girl and I have good wide shoulders that make me look like a football player with a taste for low waist jeans and glittery lip balm. I have a square jaw that can crush a jaw-breaker like it's a jelly teddy. I could totally see myself being the next Million Dollar Baby. And Sonya, in her usual Sonya ways said two words.

"Do it."

So I took it literally and ran downstairs to tell the gym owner I was interested in boxing and she immediately set me up with a policeman who would make Mr Miyagi green with jealousy with his knowledge of martial arts. I started the classes with him and loved it although it was extremely, extremely demanding. But I was so excited that Sonya ended up wanting to join me in my classes and for maybe 3 months, we did boxing.

Then spring came. We decided to go take a walk on the Mount-Royal and we were congratulating each other on adding to the fitness training, our mouths admittedly working out more than our butts, but still, we were there. As we were discussing, it was more and more obvious that we had a lot in common. Now you'd see us and you'd probably crack up at how different we are. A caramel petite exotic beauty with long flowy hair in a ponytail, very energetic and talkative dressed in Burberry walking next to a reserved blonde giant nodding and smiling dressed in her ex boyfriend's workout clothes. Except that once in a while, you'd see these two jumping up and down, highfiving each other, squealing like only girls do: "YeEee!!! Me tooOooOo!!!". Well, that's during one of those squeals that the magic happened. One of us mentionned she would love to participate in a marathon.

Squeal. High 5. "YeEee!!! Me tooOooOo!!!"

Done deal.

Fast foward to the next day. We're on a track in a shady neighborhood, I swear, there are bags of drugs hanging to the branches of trees and suspicious weirdos walking by who grab them and shove them in their jackets. But we're dressed in our brand new Lululemon outfits with our bottled water and I see her walking towards me with a big smile and I'm thinking "Alright! This is it!".

Runner friends of Sonya had advised us to start with walking half the distance we would run and then do it again. So we aimed for 2 laps around the track and then we'd be walking for one lap. We tried that and honest, it was so hard. We were really looking forward to the lap we would walk and to me, it never lasted long enough. Sonya, in a much better shape than I am and owner of a very good cardio, didn't seem to find it as hard as I did but still had to push herself to achieve our four repetitions of that exercise.

I knew there was a gap between our capacity to do it so I tried to go more often and trained alone when I could. But I didn't have a good way to do it, it seems. I do not know if it was the way I ran or my weight or lack of stretching or overdoing it too fast... or all of the above. Nevertheless, I hurt myself pretty bad. My shins had hurt for a while but I kept running on it. I thought it was surely muscular, that it would pass. I had read that by starting to run, my body would hurt. I sucked it up and ran. But it started hurting more and more. The thing is when I started running, it would hurt less and less until I stopped, then I could barely walk on it. I asked a doctor friend of mine who quickly diagnosed split shins .

I had to stop running. It took more than a month for me to feel I could run again. During that time, Sonya and I walked. I felt so guilty and mad at myself. How stupid! To just barge in there and do it the foolish way, not listening to my body at all.

Switching shoes helped a lot. See, I thought that by inserting a shock absorbing sole in my shoes, it would help. But if you buy a good pair of shoes, it is already designed to do that, so adding a sole only adds disbalance, which will make things worse. Just sharing experience acquired the hard way here...

When I got better, we had come to love the surroundings provided by the Mount-Royal and during our walks we always saw the Beavers Lake, which is a small lake at the top of the mount on which people skate during winter. It's very cute. Sonya suggested we run there during the summertime. It would be less hot and more agreable than the track.

Her partner even calculated the distance around the lake for us so we would know how much distance we nailed.

0,629 km

If we wanted to run a 5 km, which was the new goal, we'd have to run 8 times around the lake.

We decided to run and see how much we could do. With much effort, we could do 3 laps, then walk one lap, then run 3 more.

Soon, we could push for 4 laps, walk one lap, do 3 more.

Then we diminished the pause. And what I'm mentionning here was quite rapid progress. In about 2 weeks or so.

So we were now running 4 laps, walking half a lap, then we ran 3 more.

One day, Sonya's best friend came to see us run. We got distracted then and realized that we took less "pause" than usual so the next time, we decided not to stop.

God it was hard. SO hard. Frankly, maybe the hardest thing I ever did.

We ran it between 35 and 40 minutes.

Then we did it again: 35 minutes.

We are both competitive on different levels. Sonya seems competitive in a more general way. She likes to be at the top. I am competitive with myself. So we both agreed that we'd try to do it faster and faster, eventually adding the missing distance for our 5 km.

Last week, the skies were gray and rain started pouring, suddenly. It soaked us. But we kept running and it gave us the whipping hit we needed. At the last lap, when it is hardest because you are tired and your breath is short, we always pushed. But we felt good enough to push this one during the whole lap. I am estimating we ran it twice faster than the other laps. When we stopped, we checked our time.

30 minutes.

THIRTY MINUTES!!!!!! We were walking on clouds. We bragged about it to our friends and were surprised to find lukewarm congratulations. But we were not defeated and went back running this week... until that guy happened.

You know. That guy.

That guy life sends you when you're sitting on your laurels. Of course he's young, breathtakingly beautiful, arrogant, and much better than you are.

He's the Devil's Advocate.

And he's there to push your limit.

When Sonya told him about our progress, looking for advice so we could run our 5K at the Montreal Marathon on September 25th, he gave her that killer answer:

"What... that's it?"

Wait. I need to stop scoffing. It's bad attitude.

YAH that's it, man!!!! I mean, "It" started with nothing. Two lazy girls who hated to exercise but ended up progressing enough to run an "almost 5 km"... I mean....

That was my reaction when Sonya called me last night to tell me that. And like she says, at least I didn't have to "live it" as she did because he actually made that comment in front of her friends!!!!

More scoffing.

"We have to do better than that... can you imagine?", she said, with a whispery giggle that cracked me up.

In that guy's opinion, we should aim to run the full 5 km in 25 minutes, no more. Or else we should be ashamed.

Ahem. Yah.

Oh he also called us crazy for running under the sun at a 30 degrees temperature.

And we MUST do weight training to strenghten our legs and therefore increase our performance.

So... Here's the plan today. I'm meeting Sonya at the gym. And we'll step on the treadmill. And we'll run and see how far we can get in 20 minutes. Then we will do weights. And curse that guy. But also send him a bit (and I do mean a LITTLE BIT) of love cuz he's not only the negative trigger factor I will write down on a Post-It and stick to my fridge so that it feeds me the negative energy I need to propulse myself.... he is also the wind beneath our wings.

So... send us all your positive thoughts. :)