Committing to Sun Run key to success
There’s nothing like a commitment to keep a guy motivated.
One of my goals for the 33rd annual Vancouver Sun Run was to get to a racing weight of under 180 pounds. As I was tipping the scales at 206 pounds in early January, this was going to be a pretty decent challenge.
In what turned out to be pretty good timing, our company’s biggest loser challenge started midJanuary and ended in early March. I quickly signed up, paid my $10, and worked hard on both diet and activity to lose some weight. Since I’m also a bit competitive, I did well in the biggest loser competition.
By the end, I was down to 183.5, losing 23.5 pounds or 11 per cent of my body weight. This was good for 11th place out of around 200 people. I have no doubt I would not have had as much success without the commitment and competition in the back of my mind. There would have been quite a few more beers, cookies and carbs in those nine weeks.
Committing to and registering for the Sun Run has been great motivation for my running as well. I’m following a structured program with a couple of pretty intense interval runs, a hill run and a long run each week.
I’ve been travelling a lot for both business and pleasure the last little while. As everyone in Vancouver is all too familiar with, the weather has been pretty terrible as well. In other words, I’ve had lots of potential excuses to skip workouts.
That’s where the magic of commitment comes in.
I’ve told a lot of people I’m running the Sun Run including friends, family, colleagues and anyone reading this blog. I’ve also told people of my goal (under 43 minutes) and committed to myself to do my best to make this happen.
With this commitment and accountability, I’ve run a lot when I didn’t feel like it.
Last week I did my long run in plus-25 C weather in Palm Springs. This week it was on a hotel treadmill in Ottawa.
I’ve also done a couple of late night workouts in the hotel in Edmonton and several in the morning or evening darkness, wetness and snow in Vancouver.
A lot of these runs simply don’t happen if I’m not registered for the Sun Run.
My challenge for anyone reading this is to pull the trigger and register for the Sun Run or another spring or summer race. There are so many to choose from including some well-priced races from MEC and a new West Van Run race called the Summer 5k and Ambleside Mile on June 3.
Do yourself a favour and make a commitment.
You won’t regret it!