March 11, 2024

Final update

Beloved fellow ambassadors, dear Soficans, valued customers and other readers,

For my final update before the Sofico Marathon event, I decided to write a blog instead of making a movie.
One can only film oneself that many times before becoming a tad tedious, I hope you agree.

How did this all start out for me?

Well, sometimes I wonder myself.

Some of you may know in the meantime that I am a lower-back hernia patient. Having had surgery performed several times. But back pain leads to a vicious cycle where you tend to avoid physical exercise since that causes pain. But of course, not exercising causes a weaker back, and so on.

Being overweight certainly did not help the matter, again contributing to the same vicious circle where not moving around enough inhibits your calory-burning. Desk jobs aren’t the most physically demanding professions out there 😊

In my younger days, I did some sport but was never really an enthused sporter. I just did not see the fun in it most of the time. So while I do love to go hiking, it is only with reluctance that I would set out on a time-consuming sporting hobby since “we all have better things to do”, or at least, that is what I told myself before.

Running however, I find to be the ultimate democratic sport. You put on your gear, and off you go. No need to drive to a sports center, no need to show up at dedicated times for a group-event, just get dressed appropriately and go out.

So, for me personally, the challenge was twofold: would I be able to start running in regards to my hernia-past and would I be able to persevere in the training schedule?
After all, my fellow ambassadors and I all received a stringent training schedule to prepare for the event. A half marathon in my case.

Up till a short while ago, I vehemently adhered to that schedule until I fell sick. A bad cold with a bout of coughs so severe I hurt my back. O irony 😉.
10 days later, I went on my first run again and was taken aback by the apparent significant loss in physical prowess in such a short time. Since then, I went on two more runs and each time, my heart rate spiked early on during the run.
Even in rest, my heart rate is about 15 beats a minute higher then before the cold.
Laura, our coach from Energy Lab, suspects this to be still a remnant from that cold and I do hope she’s right since the 24^th is coming near.

Last Sunday, 3^rd March, I went for a 2h05m run and only managed a mere 14kms. So average speed around 7km/h. At this pace, I will need 3 hours to finish the half marathon. I do not think I will gain any additional speed between now and then, but still, I’ll be happy to complete the run regardless of the duration.

Will I keep running after the event? I think so, or rather, I really am planning to do so now the weather is becoming a bit more agreeable. Maybe not for hours on end, but one-hour runs should be perfect thrice a week. We’ll see.

So I do hope to see a lot of you during the event, be it on the parcours or afterwards in the Sofico-area!

I also thought to share a current picture since I did loose about 5KGs, so here goes:

January 14, 2024

Join me on my runs