Dream it. Plan it. Do it.

One of the questions I ask my guests is “When did you first visualise yourself doing what you do now?”  I am often surprised that some can tell me a specific age or moment that they thought, actually I’d love to do this one day.  

I find people dream it, plan it, do it,  – so, I did too.

That moment for me was a few years ago when I saw a group of runners who had finished the Marathon in Victoria Park in Auckland.  I thought “One day I’d love to do that.” 

It wasn’t possible then, as my youngest was 2 years old.  Fast forward 2 years and I started running in June.  I used a technique based on what was suggested by Andrea Peables of Re-Ignite Life  To have an easy run, a hilly medium run then on Friday I would run as far as I could.

To get me started I actually thought of The Biggest Loser.  I’ve seen them pull weights up hill.  Carry them on their back.  So I put 5kg in my back pack and ran down my street and back (2.4km).  The next time I ran I ran double without the weight.  I tricked myself into thinking it was a lot easier to run, and I had run close to 5k in my second run. 

The following challenge was to run 4k with 5kgs in the backpack.  Never again!  That was far too much to carry for that far.  BUT, it did mean I ran 8km the following run which didn’t seem so hard.  And there it was within 2-3 weeks I was running 10km. 

10 weeks later I ran 42km to see if I could run it.  It took me 6hours 15 minutes and with drink re-fills and breaks I could.

15 weeks later I ran my first official marathon, The North Shore Marathon.  I ran 6 hours 15 minutes.  It was possibly too close to my previous marathon and I made so many rookie mistakes.  Like, I didn’t bring enough drink, I only had 5 hours sleep, not resting enough the week before, I hadn’t run on sand before (there were 2-4km of this) and not tempering my runs the month before.

Yesterday I ran the Auckland Marathon with a personal best of 5 hours 45mins.  I had time to enjoy the run too, by taking selfies, videos as well as the normal stretch stops. 

2 years since I dreamed it, 5 months since I started planning for the Auckland Marathon and yesterday I did it.

If I a stay-at-home working Mum or 2 can “Dream it.  Plan it.  Do it.”  so can you 🙂

<3

Sarah

Picture is of me at the top of the Auckland Harbour bridge yesterday.  I ran the whole way 🙂