Actually, I Can

I saw this on Twitter the other day.

It was kind of funny because I'd just said that to myself on my long run on Sunday. It was supposed to be a hot day (104) and I had scheduled a 12 miler. Well, truthfully, it was supposed to be a 13 miler but I had flipped the last 2 weekends knowing this weekend was supposed to be hot.

As I started out, I thought about my goals for the run. First and foremost...don't die. Don't overheat. Don't over do it. Just get it done.

But then as I ran I thought about how good I was feeling and whether or not I could make this a more solid training run instead of "just surviving". I keep seeing M (@ReadEatWriteRun) and her race pace long runs on the weekends and it reminded me that I used to train like that. And honestly, I have been a little envious. Okay, a lot. ;) I miss training like that. I thought to myself "I can do this" and made the decision to go for it.

So instead of just doing 12, I decided to do the 13 that was part of the plan AND run it more aggressively than I'd planned. I still ran easy for the first 9 miles but at a slightly quicker clip than I had planned. Then for mile 10, I picked it up and I felt good and went for it. I ran miles 11 & 12 at half marathon pace. And then the last mile was a cool down. I ended up doing an 11:30 pace and finishing in 2:30:57 for 13.1 miles. Which as it turns out is a post cancer PR for the Half! Woo!

The best part is that I felt like I could have run more when I finished.

It felt awesome!

And that was after a pretty solid training week and working legs on Saturday for Phil.

Stats for last week:
Running - 36.1 miles (13.2, 6.2, 4.2, 7.2, and 5.3)
Riding - 123.4 miles
Weight Training - 5 hours

It's less than 3 weeks now until Rock 'n' Roll Los Angeles Half and I feel pretty good about where I'm at for it. I am hoping for 2:20 and that feels really doable now. :)

In other news, I had my 1 year check up with my oncologist on Monday and that went really, really well! The ultrasound showed nothing so no new growths and the "lesion" that had shown up in my CAT scan 6 months ago was gone too. My vitals were awesome as well: heart rate 51, blood pressure 101/69, weight 179.4. And best of all my blood sugar was down to 94! It had been as high as 139 in March and only dropped to 129 in July. We, the doctor and I, were worried that I would be pre-diabetic/diabetic going forward. But losing the weight and eating better has really helped. She was very excited to see the changes in me and reminded me that being overweight not only increased my risk of diabetes but cancer as well. Which I already knew and is why I was so determined to lose the weight. I don't have to go back for 6 months and I only "need" to schedule a mammogram every 2 years.

Everything is falling into place now. I'm so relieved and so happy that I can put this behind me and not have it hang over my head every day. I'm sure I'll always have the fear that cancer will come back but I am not going to let that fear rule my life. I'm just going to live as healthy and happy as I can and have fun. :)

Thanks for reading!