224: 5 Lessons I Learned Running A Half Marathon

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio episode number 224.

Hello and welcome to Biceps After Babies Radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PRs. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife, and mom of four. Each week, my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise mindset, personal development, and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel, and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you, my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in, now let’s jump into today’s episode.

 

My half marathon story 0:47

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke. And I'm going to be telling you about the half marathon that I ran recently. Now, if you have listened to the podcast for a while, you may be like, Amber, why did you run a half marathon? You don't even like running, and you know what? You would be right. So I'm gonna tell you the story about how it came to be that I decided to run a half marathon. And what that experience was like for me, and then specifically, what are some of the things that I learned from that experience, because you know, me, I'm always looking for lessons and takeaways that we can apply to other areas of our life. So that's what we're going to do today. 

 

Continue to support the podcast to grow 1:39

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Just back info of my previous run 2:18

All right. So a week and a half ago, I ran a half marathon. Now just as a little bit of back information. This is now the third half marathon that I've run, my last half marathon was 13 years ago. So back in 2009 was the last time I ran a half marathon, I have run one marathon that was back in 2005. And then I've run two half marathons, the last one being in 2009. So there's a big gap between 2009 and here we are in 2022. And that big gap is because while I used to do a lot more running when I was in college, really, I transitioned into more weightlifting. And I transitioned into group fitness, and, you know, eventually into powerlifting, and then into CrossFit. And so the last 13 years have looked a lot more like me doing a lot of group fitness, a lot of lifting, and moving away from running. Now, I don't have anything against running, there are plenty of people who really, really like to run, but I just wanted something different. I ran in college because well, it was free and super accessible, and super easy to do. And I think that's one of the most attractive things about running is all you have to do is lace up some tennis shoes and go outside and run around. And I think that accessibility is a huge benefit of running. 

 

My first marathon experience  3:55

Many of you may know the story that when I trained for and ran a marathon back in 2005 was right after I got married. And I remember as I was training for that marathon, so many people told me that, you know, relating their own stories of their first marathon, saying, oh my gosh, when I crossed the finish line I like all I want to do is run another marathon and like you're going to be the same way you're going to cross the finish line, you're just going to be like hooked and just be like when can I sign up for my next marathon? And I trained for that. My longest run was a 20-miler before the marathon and I did pretty well up until about mile 20. And right at mile 20, I hit the wall. I hit it really hard. And I remember, luckily my dad, my sister and TJ who was my husband, we're on like the kind of hopped the race so they would, you know, meet me at one-mile marker and then they kind of get their car and they drive around and they go to a little bit further and wait for me and then drive a little bit further away from me. And so luckily, they were there right around mile 20. And they could see that I was hurting really bad and that I really had hit the wall and was like not sure if I was going to be able to finish. And so they hopped on to the course with me, they hopped off the sidewalk and just kind of jogged next to me and told me I could do it, you got this, like, keep going. And I just remember having tears streaming down my face being like, I don't know if I can finish. And they really encouraged me. And they did that a couple of times throughout those last six miles to really helped me to finish the marathon. And then I remember crossing the finish line of the marathon and just waiting to feel that elation, that sense of accomplishment that like, Oh, that was so fun. I want to do it again. And I felt the exact opposite. I was like, that was terrible. I hated it. I felt awful. I never ever, ever want to do that again. That was my experience. So I didn't, it was a one-and-done type of thing. I ran that marathon and checked it off my bucket list. And after that, you know, as I said before, I ran a couple of half marathons, and I actually didn't mind the half marathon distance as much, it was a lot easier as a lot easier to train for, you know, 13 miles is very, very different from 26 miles. 

 

What made me decide to run again  6:24

So that kind of begs the question, what happened? Where did this half marathon come from? It kind of feels like it came out of the left field. And you would be right if you thought that. So I am the oldest of seven. There are four girls, and there are three boys. And I'm the eldest, my youngest sister is 17 and a half years younger than me, she was born right as I was going into my senior year in high school. So there's a big gap between me and the youngest. In fact, my daughter is only six years younger than my youngest sister. So they're a lot closer in age than I am to my own sister. But we have had planned as a family the sisters, to get together with my parents and go to a family camp. My brothers were invited, but they didn't really want to go, it was much more of like a family camp. And my sisters are the ones who have kids, except for my younger sister, who's still in college. So we decided to go to this family camp in Utah over the summer. And we were planning on that. And all of a sudden, I get a text message. And it is all of my sisters and my mom in a text message. And I will actually read the text message to you. My sister, Rachel sent a text message to our group. And she said, Amber, we're running the Utah Valley half on June 4, and we're going to convince you to do it too. And then my other sister chimes in, ever run with us. And my little sister said somehow they convinced me, I told them, I would do the half if you did it too. My third sister says, think of all the content you could create, do it for the pics. And I sent a gif back saying I'm in and all of my sisters like, Well, that was like, way, way, way easier than expected. They all thought it was gonna be a lot harder to convince me to do the half because they know I'm not a huge runner. But here's my thinking, I really think the only way that you could get me to do a half marathon is to invite me to do it with all of my sisters and my mom. And that just seemed like an opportunity that I could not pass up. And even though it was running, I knew that if I was going to do it, it was going to be with my sisters and my mom. So all four of us girls, and my mom signed up. My one sister Rachel, she's crazy and she likes to run marathons. So she actually signed up for the marathon. And the rest of us signed up for the half. So yes, out of the left field, but as I said, if there's any way you're gonna get me to do something, it would be to create a scenario where I was already traveling there anyway, for this family event. All of my sisters and my mom were doing it. And to that I was like, okay, even though it's running, I'm in. Let's do this. 

 

5 Lessons I Learned Running A Half Marathon  9:15

So today on the podcast, I want to relate to you five lessons that I learned during this experience of running the marathon, the half marathon, let's be clear, the half marathon. 

 

No. 1 Preparation breeds success  9:28

So lesson number one is that preparation breeds success. So even though I knew all the way back at the end of March that I was going to be running this half marathon. Let me tell you, I did not prepare very much for said race. In fact, it was about a month ahead of time when I realized you know I probably should start training for this race. And in order to do that, I probably need to get some running shoes because I don't actually own any running shoes. And this was about a month ahead. And so I went to the running shoe store and had someone like watch my gait and helped me to buy some running shoes. And I remember when the guy was asking me about, you know why I was there was buying the tennis shoes, what I was going to do with them, I told him that I was going to run a half marathon and that I wasn't really a runner, so I didn't have any shoes. But I was gonna run this half marathon. And he looked at me, with a little bit of like terror in his eyes. And he said, It's not tomorrow, is it? And I laughed, and I said, No, no, I'm not that stupid. It's in a month. You know, I'm not that stupid. I have a month to train. And you know, I'm pretty fit, like I work out a lot. So I'm not super worried. Well, so I got my shoes. And I came home and I texted my sisters and my mom and I said, I realized that if I wanted to run a half marathon in a month, I probably shouldn't, I don't know, buy running shoes. I went to the running store today to get fitted and walked out with these bad boys. So I guess you could say things are getting pretty serious. Maybe next I will actually run in them. So that was where we were out about a month ahead of the half marathon was me buying some running shoes. 

 

Oh no! I got plantar fasciitis  11:31

Now, I was so excited to have running shoes and you know, go for a run. And the marathon and half marathon were coming up. And so I decided to make my first run a five-miler. So I put on my lace-up shoes and went out for a run actually felt decently good. It all came back to me of how I remember when I used to run the first like a mile and a half just like sucked. And then I would like to get past that hump and then it would be more enjoyable. And I definitely felt that again. I was like, the first couple miles this is like terrible. And then, you know, I settled into it and it wasn't so bad. And I came back and actually felt really good and went out to dinner with my daughter that night. And the next morning I woke up and I was like, Oh no, I have plantar fasciitis. So those of you who are runners know what plantar fasciitis is, there's a fascia that runs on the bottom of your foot. And a lot of runners struggle with inflammation of that tissue. And I've actually never had plantar fasciitis. In fact, when I was running a lot, I usually struggled with shin splints, that was kind of my nagging injury that I always had to kind of be aware of, but I never had plantar fasciitis, but I had in my left heel. And I was like, Oh no, I was stupid. And ran,  you know, went from running zero miles, getting brand new shoes, and then running five miles. And that was not too smart. And here we are, this was actually I think, like, three weeks before, said marathon. And we're it's kind of coming down the pike and I'm like, oh shoot, trying to like figure out how I'm gonna get some of this mileage in so that I can make sure I can finish this half marathon. 

 

Did 3 runs before my half marathon  13:17

So I took more than a week off, maybe a week and a half off before, you know, letting my leg like the inflammation wear down and being able to be comfortable with my foot again. And I ended up I think maybe I ran was like a little bit. I don't know, I tried to go back and like look at my like exactly what I did to like refresh my memory. But I know that I ran like a mile, or here and there, especially in CrossFit. Like we'll do running and CrossFit. And so I was feeling pretty good with my shoes. I was feeling pretty good with my feet. And so I decided I needed to get some mileage in and so I did a total of three runs before my half marathon that five milers that I did with, you know when I first bought the shoes. I then did a six miler and then my last run, I think it was like a week before the half marathon. I did a seven, seven, and a half. And I figure you know if I can do more than half of that's what actually my mom said my mom was like, if you can do at least half of the half marathon in training, you can do the half marathon on running on the race day. So that was what I did. I ran a five miler, I ran a six miler, and I ran a seven and a half miler, and I was like, let's do this. We're gonna go run. 

 

No. 2 To define success  14:36

So this lesson that I'm talking about is preparation breeds success kind of rolls into, so first of all, my preparation was not great for this. But it rolls into my second lesson, which is that it's really important to define success. So for me, success was not PR-ing, success was not beating anybody. Success was like, my expectation for success was very low, it was literally to finish the race, I just wanted to cross the finish line. That was my expectation for success. That was my definition of success. Now, there are plenty of other people running this race. For some of those people, they wanted to PR, for some of those people, they wanted to be first in their age group. For other people, they wanted to run without walking, you know, everybody gets to pick their own definition of success. But it's really important to work backward from whatever your definition was. If my definition of success had been to run a certain pace, or PR or whatever, I would have needed to work backward and had different preparation. But because my definition of success was literally to cross the finish line, whatever it took me to cross the finish line, that was my level of success, my preparation could look a little bit different, it could look like doing three runs before running a half marathon. So I think that this is super, super important. Because if you're not, like a lot of times people will be like, Well, I'm not being successful. I'm not getting results. But we haven't taken the time to step back and really define what success means, what exactly when I say I'm not getting results, and what exactly I mean by that. Because the more specific you can get with your definition of success, the more you can backtrack from there, create the preparation, create the framework, and create the steps in order to get you to the success. But oftentimes, when I'm coaching people, we are very general and broad with what we're labeling, as we just talked about in broad languages, like success, results, you know, just broad language like that and when we can get really specific, it really makes a difference. 

 

I didn't need to prove anything to anyone 16:57

Now, in this underneath this umbrella of defining success, this is kind of like a sub-lesson that I learned. And that was that I didn't need to prove anything to anyone. And this, you know, this realization I actually had this realization on when I was in the middle of the race, is that you know what, I'm not here to prove anything to anyone. I don't need to prove my fitness, I don't need to prove that I can do this. I don't need to prove that I can run at a certain pace. I don't need to prove anything to anyone. My goal really was just across the finish line. And guess what? I did. I actually ran with my mom the entire way. And she's a rock star. She is 63. And when she turned 60, I think she's run like I should probably ask to get the exact number. Hold on. Okay, I'm back. I looked it up. It was 28. So this was her 28 half marathon. In fact, the year she turned 60, her goal was she wanted to run six half marathons in her 60th year. And she forgets she's a rock star. So I ran with my mom the whole way. And we did finish, we were not blazing fast. In fact, I laughed when we crossed the finish line and we like got us, they give us like a little tag at the end of telling you, you know, your split pace and your chip time and where you placed and how many people you beat. And I laughed because there were 1400 people that ran this race, and we got 1315. Meaning we beat 85 people, and we were slower than 1300 people. But who cares? Like, I don't need to prove anything to anyone. This was the whole goal of this was literally to go and have fun with my sisters and my mom and go do this thing together. And let me tell you, we had a blast. 

 

No. 3  How can I make this fun?  18:57

So this leads to lesson number three was like once I decided that I was going to run this race. I asked myself the question that I teach my clients to ask themselves and I am going to teach you right now to be asking yourself this question as well. And that question is, how can I make this fun? And the reason that I think this is such a powerful question is that a lot of times when we're doing hard things, it's not fun. And that goes for you know, running a half marathon, that goes for lifting weights, it goes for changing your diet, it goes from you know, to like going through a divorce, like hard things are not usually, like inherently fun. And sometimes we feel we have to grit our teeth and we just have to bear it and like get through it and that's fine. Yes, sometimes that needs to happen. But if we can have this question in our back pocket like, how can I make this fun? Maybe it's not gonna be awesome. Maybe it's not gonna be the best time ever, but like, we have a lot more power than we think to be able to make things that feel seem unenjoyable actually enjoyable. And so I asked myself that question like, how can we make this fun, I don't really like running, it's not fun for me. So we, you know, I intentionally did things to make it fun. The first thing was, obviously, that it did work with people. And there is no way in any universe that I would have run this race by myself. And the only reason I was running it was because I was doing it with my sisters, I was doing it with my mom. And that was a way that it was going to make it fun. 

 

My bond with my sisters and my mom during the bus ride 20:30

Let me tell you, just being with my sisters, and my mom was a blast, we actually had to get up at 3:30 am. I can't even I don't even know the last time I got up when there was a three on the clock. But we got up at 3:30 am because the way that the Utah Valley half works is that you, they bus you up. So they take you up into the mountains like up into the canyon, and they drop you off at the top, and then you run down the canyon. And so because of that, and because they have to close down around bunch of roads, and they don't want to have that, you know, they want to be able to wrap it up and not have those roads closed for a really long time. And they have to close down canyon roads. And whatever they do it really early like the start time is supposed to be around 6 am. So because of that, and because we had to get bused up there. We had to wake up at 3:30 and go catch a bus. Let me tell you just like I just remember riding on the bus with my sisters and my mom just like laughing because we just like, we just made it fun. It was like 3:30 in the morning. We're all tired. We're doing to run this stupid race. Well, for me, it was stupid. Like my other sisters actually trained for it, my other sister actually run. So you know, they were somewhat excited about it. But we just like had a blast. And to me that it was like, again, this question of how can I make it fun was the way that I was able to get through this thing that to me is not a whole lot of fun. 

 

My other ways of making the run fun 22:00

Some other ways that I was able to make it fun is I ran the entire time with my mom. Now my mom when I was doing my training, so when I was you know, I ran my five, six and seven miles. I was running at about a 10-minute pace. Okay, I'm not fast, not trying to be fast. I know a lot of you runners are listening. And that's a super slow pace. And some of you're listening. That's like a super fast pace, right? It's all relative. But for me, that was kind of where I was running out for these longer runs. And my sisters who actually run, run at a much faster pace than that. And my mom has run lots and lots of fast runs at a slower pace than that kind of averages like a 12-minute mile. And so I had this like conundrum of like, nobody runs kind of the pace that I run out. So I chose instead to say hey, I'm just gonna run with my mom. That'll make it fun. I'll have somebody with me. And boy am I glad that I did that. Because while that we ended up running like a 12 and a half minute pace, I think overall. While those first six miles felt super easy like, “I'm going way too slow” type of easy. I am so glad that I did it because, in the back half, it was not super easy. And I'm pretty sure if I had tried to pace it myself, I would have gone out way too hot. And I would have like suffered a lot on the back half. And because I had committed to staying with my mom and she was better at pacing than I was we didn't go out too hot and we actually kept the 12 and-a-half minute pace for like the whole 13 miles. So running with my mom though made a ton of fun and I'm so glad I did that. I think I would have been miserable if I didn't have somebody that I was running with. And you know, there's a lesson in and of itself of you know, sometimes when we're doing hard things if there's a way to do with somebody that can be super beneficial. And I see this a lot of people who you know when they join MACROS 101, they do it with a friend, or when they are going to you know to go and start lifting at the gym, they'll do it with a friend and I think there is so much value in just having somebody else going through that with you, experiencing that with you, commiserating with you even and my mom and I definitely did that during the run.  You know, other ways that we made it fun, we listened to music, I listened to some podcasts and like, in as much as possible just tried to enjoy the experience. You know, if I was coming up with something that was as fun to do. In fact, I even said this I was like, next time that we like want to hang out as like girls and like let's go to a spa. Like why can't we be like normal people and I don't know go to a spa together for a girls' day and said we like Girls Day, let's go for a run? So anyway, that question of how can I make it fun is one that I hope that you slip into your back pocket and when things get hard, when you're doing hard things whip that question out and ask yourself how can I make this more fun? Maybe it's not gonna be a blast, maybe not gonna be the most fun thing you can imagine but asking yourself that question and figuring out ways to make your cut, the gym, lifting, or whatever the most fun possible is a really powerful question to be asking yourself.

 

No. 4   Mile markers make all of the difference  25:16

Alright, that's lesson number four is that mile markers make all of the difference. So during our five-day challenge that we run every six months, I teach this concept of creating mile markers in your fitness journey. Because so often we create an end goal that we would like to achieve, right, I would like to lose 40 pounds. And especially for things like losing 40 pounds, that finish line can seem like a marathon away, there's a lot of ground that has to be covered in order to reach that goal. And so if we're only setting that one goal of like, I want to lose the 40 pounds, it can feel like a marathon, it can feel like a slog, it can feel like you're not making any progress because that finish line is so far away. And so I make the point of talking about creating mile markers on our journey. And this idea came from when I ran my first marathon and it happened again, during this race, that I realized that 26 miles was a really long distance. And if I was focused on the end result of running the 26 miles, I felt discouraged, I felt like I wasn't making progress, I felt like I had still had so long to go and it was not encouraging at all to me. And so I started focusing instead of on the end result, I started focusing on the different mile markers. So if I was on mile marker five, instead of focusing on mile marker 26, I was focused on mile marker six, and just like, Okay, I'm just going to add one more mile, one more mile, like get that get to the mile marker six, get to mile marker six, and then I get to mile marker six. And I was like, yes. Okay. In my half. I was like, yes, okay, we're almost halfway there, you know, so, like creating these little games for myself to break what seemed like a very big goal and a very big task into much smaller, more achievable, more bite-sized pieces of my journey. And that same experience that I had in the marathon, definitely applied to the half mark marathon, and I stopped focusing on the 13 miles and just focused on that next mile marker, and the next mile marker, and then you know, you get to mile marker 10 is like, okay, yes, we only three miles left, right, we're getting to mile 13. And you know, we're a mile limit, okay, only two miles left, right. So just really taking the time to think about just the next thing that was in front of me, rather than what was 5-10, seven miles ahead of me, really helped me to be able to make it to the end of the race. And you can be applying that same concept to your journey. Do you have a big goal that you are trying to achieve? If yes, awesome. How can you break that down into smaller goals that you can focus your attention on? 

 

Difference between process goals and outcome goals 28:08

I also talked about this concept in Episode 92, which is one of my favorite podcasts I've recorded. It's about goals. But I make the point that there's a difference between process goals and there's a difference between outcome goals. And the mistake a lot of people make is to focus their attention daily on the outcome goal, rather than the process goal, or rather than the mile marker. And just like in my race, if I spent the whole race thinking about mile 13, I would have gotten discouraged, I would have felt like I couldn't get there, I would have felt like it was way too big of a task at hand. And so yes, my goal was to make it to 13 miles, right, that was my definition of success, I wanted to cross the finish line. But my focus in the meantime, my moment-to-moment focus was on just that next mile marker. And the same can be said for you as you may have a big goal that you want to achieve. I'm not telling you to get rid of that big goal. However, day to day your focus should be on the smaller goals, it should be focused on the things that are within your control, that allow you to stair step towards the bigger goal at hand. So if you haven't listened to Episode 92, I definitely recommend going back and listening to that, especially if you're somebody who, I hear this a lot of people who like I've never been a goal setter. It's never been something I've, like learned before, or I don't feel like I'm good at setting goals or I have, you know, I just don't set goals in my life. If that's you, Episode 92 is gonna be awesome. And even if you do feel like you have set goals, one of the things I've learned is that nobody teaches goal setting for the most part as you're growing up. There's a process to goal setting. Nobody teaches that process. And so we get to adulthood and people like to set goals and we don't really understand what that means. We don't understand the nuances of how to be successful with it. And so a lot of us just throw up our hands I'd say, Well, I just don't set goals, I don't set new year's resolutions, because, you know, I don't ever hit them. So anyway, 92 We'll link that up in the show notes. But that's definitely a good podcast episode to go listen to.

 

No. 5  In order to make progress, you don't have to always be running  30:13

Okay, so number five, lesson number five, that I learned was that in order to make progress, you don't have to always be running. So, on the back half of the half marathon, you know, around mile like 10-11-12-ish, there were these two people, a guy, and a girl running together. And my mom and I were running at our 12 and a half a pace, you know, we're starting to hurt, like, I started to hurt around mile 10. And we're starting to hurt, it's starting to get hard. And I remember that there's this guy and this girl, and they would pass us and run past us. And then they would walk, they would stop and walk, and they would walk and we would pass them while they're walking. And then they would start running again, and they would pass us and then they would start walking. And we did this back and forth. Like, I don't know, 8-10-12 times, where we were just running at this consistent pace. And they were doing more of this analogous, it wasn't a float sprint, but it was a faster pace, run, and then a walk. And it was funny, as I was thinking about this that a lot of times, I think oh, just that like a consistent jog, is the fastest way to get somewhere. When in reality, a lot of times it can be less exhausting, it can be more focused, where we're running a little bit faster for a period of time, and then we're walking, and then we're running a little bit faster, and then we're walking. And these, you know, cycles of intensity, these cycles of more focus can be just as fast as a consistent slog. 

 

Set your floor goals  32:02

Now, the key here as I was thinking about this, the key here is that they didn't stop. So this guy and girl didn't run, and then like stop and sit on the ground. They walked. And I think a lot of times in our journey, we do the sprint, and sit down on the ground. And then we wonder why we're not making progress. We wonder why we're not getting there as fast as we want. And that is because you're running fast. And then you're full-on sitting on the ground. And so I thought this was such a valuable lesson to take away and to look at in terms of your journey. Can we, you know, is not better for you to go through cycles of more intensity than a planned step back in your intensity without seeing your battleground. So how what would walking look like to you, you know, metaphorical walking in your journey? Because a lot of times it like I said, it's like, okay, sprinting is like going to the gym, go to the gym, go to the gym three times a week, you know, three, four times a week, I'm going to the gym. And then we have a week where we don't go to the gym at all right? That's the equivalent of running faster and then stopping and not doing anything. And so how could we create a definition around that metaphorical walking? What does walking look like? I actually teach this inside of MACROS 101, we talk about setting floor and ceiling goals. I think I teach it in that golden episode as well. And to me, like “walking” is the floor goal. It's what you are committed to doing, regardless of what happens, right? And I think you know, then I think it was groundless guys like they were committed to walking, they weren't going to stop. But they would slow down and they would walk and then they would have the energy to pick up the pace. And so again, neither of those like it's not like we were right in running a consistent pace or they were right, running a little bit harder. And then walking. The question really becomes like, how do you like to do it, what keeps you going, what keeps you making moving forward and making progress. And for us, it was just like keeping the same pace. That was what like felt good to us. For them, it was like a little period of intensity with a little period of walking. And it was funny because we just kept passing each other like back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, which tells me that both of those strategies work, you know, they both are effective. And we were running about the same overall pace, just different styles of doing it. 

 

The limiting reagent  34:34

So around like I said, around mile 10, around mile 11. I started to hurt and not like hurt in like an injured way. Just like you're tired, your legs are tired. And I remember this is funny, I actually remember while I was running the race. I remember back when I used to do a lot more running. I always felt like this is funny. Okay, so the limiting reagent to remember back to chemistry when we learned about like the limiting reagent, it's when you have a chemical, you combine chemicals and they start to pair up. There's one chemical, the chemical that you have less of becomes the limiting reagent, you can only form it. Okay, I'm not explaining this very well. I remember my high school chemistry teacher talking about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, she's like, if you have bread, and you have peanut butter, and you have jam, and you're making peanut butter sandwiches, and you only have one, you know, let's say a little jar of peanut butter, and a ton of jelly and a ton of bread, you can only make as much as you have peanut butter, you will probably have leftover bread, you'll probably have leftover jelly, you know, so the peanut butter is the limiting reagent, it limits what you can create. Okay, so I remember back when I used to run that the limiting reagent for me always felt like my breathing, it was always like, My legs feel great. Like they feel super strong. Like they can carry me forever. It was always like my breathing that felt like it was holding me back, it was like I couldn't get enough oxygen, and my chest would hurt. And anyway, that was always what felt like it slowed me down. It was funny with this half marathon, it was the opposite. And I think that's because my engine is a lot stronger now. Like I do a lot of CrossFit. So like breathing, really good that like we do a lot of high intensity like work that requires like, high heart rate and breathing and all that together. But what started to hurt for me was my friggin legs. My legs started her they just weren't used to that much impact and that much distance. And so you know, mile 10-11 leg started to hurt. But we were going to finish and finish we did. We got towards the end. And my family was there cheering for me because all my other sisters finished before us, as did 1300 other people. And we ran through the corral and across the finish line and, and felt really good. 

 

Thanks also to the people who cheered for us during the race  37:06

So I know though, there were a couple of you guys on the race. And I had some people that I didn't know, you know, these weren't like friends of mine cheering for me and yelling out my name and saying, oh, good go Biceps After Babies. So if that was you, that was really fun. Thank you for doing that and cheering me along with the race. But yeah, we did finish, we crossed the finish line. And I was like, Yeah, let's do a spa day next time. Let's go do something else as a family. But I am glad that I ran it. I'm glad that I finished. I'm also really glad that I ran it without hurting myself. And like I said, I think one of the keys with that was just, I'm so grateful that I ran with my mom because I think if I had run harder on the front half of the half marathon, I would have just died even more on the second half of the marathon. So glad I did it, glad it's over. 

 

Recap  37:59

I learned a lot of lessons along the way. And I'm gonna recap those lessons for you right now. Lesson number one is that preparation breeds success. And number two is that you need to define what success is so that you can create the preparation to create that success. Remember, my definition of success was crossing the finish line. So my preparation for that, while not great under most running standards, did do what I needed it to do to get to success. Number three, ask yourself the question, how can I make this more fun? Number four, using mile markers along the way to break a big goal into something a lot smaller. And number five, if you're going to slow down, slow down and walk, don't stop. And how can you utilize that you know the key is walking instead of stopping. So when you get tired, walk, don't stop, keep moving forward. And that is going to create the momentum that you need to be able to cross the finish line.

 

Takeaways  37:59

All right. So hopefully that was a fun story, fun to hear a little bit about me doing something that I'm not good at. I also think that there's a lot of value in doing things we are inherently good at, doing things that are hard, that challenge us that push us outside of that comfort zone, you give me a barbell and I'm super comfortable. And you asked me to go run a half marathon and things get uncomfortable real fast. And that discomfort is where we find strength and where we see what we're made of and where we learn you know lessons like this that are really important lessons. And so whatever it is that is currently hard for you whether it's a phase of life, whether it is a goal that you're trying to reach, whether it's something that you know is going on in a relationship, there is value in hard things and yeah, it is hard and it can suck at the moment. We can do what we can to make it fun but remind yourself that when you feel uncomfortable that is the time that you are able to grow. Growth is uncomfortable. And I tell my team a lot that our goal is to get comfortable with discomfort because when you are uncomfortable is when you're growing. And I don't know about you, but growth is something that I want to do, I want to keep growing. I think that's one of the purposes of us being here. And this world is to continue to grow. So I hope that you enjoyed it a little bit more of a personal episode. A lot of you wanted to hear the story behind the half marathon. So there you go along with some lessons that I also learned. That wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm Amber, now go on and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything. 

 

Outro

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