I am thrilled to be one of the blog ambassadors for this year’s Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run For The Cure. My daughter and I will be running the 1K in Toronto on October 5. You can donate to support our team here.
All right! The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run For the Cure is less than three weeks away. This is crunch time. This is when I tell you how all my training, exercise and general fitnessing is paying off. I should be bragging that I’m in peak physical condition and ready to run 5Ks in my sleep!
So. Um.
Er.
You see, the thing is that I had actually for real been doing a fantastic job on the fitness front all last winter. It’s mind-blowing, really, how good I was. Twice a week through the winter, I ran on a treadmill, and then outside on city streets as soon as early spring hit. Plus (!) I was doing other strength and cardio workouts at home on top of that at least a couple times a week.
That I only managed to drop a couple pounds last winter is a great testament to just how much I love food.
But, regardless of weight loss, I felt great. I was regularly and (eventually) painlessly incorporating real heart-pounding, boob sweat-inducing exercise into my daily life. I felt strong and healthy and good.
That’s when a wagon load of excuses came rolling into town on the cop-out caravan.
Fist there was a killer chest cold that knocked me off my work-out stride for actual months. Then, the summer heat served me up a dose of vomit-inducing heat stroke. Blah, blah, blah … summer vacation … no routine with the kids … barbecues and ice cream … you see what happened. And now I’m just too tired and busy. OKAY?
But it’s not okay. I don’t feel okay when I see my running shoes tucked away in the corner, untouched for weeks now. I don’t feel okay when I sit down to watch TV in the evening with a bag of chips instead of burning through a 30 minute exercise video. And I don’t feel okay realizing that I have a strong and healthy body that I am neglecting.
Isn’t that half the appeal of the Run for the Cure? Isn’t it the knowledge that we CAN run? We have our health. We can use our strength to raise money for those who are sick in the hope that they, too, can run again.
So, even though I’m only running the 1K race on Sunday, October 5th with my nearly six-year-old daughter, I want to be back to regular 5K runs by then. I should be able to piggy back my daughter across the finish line if I have to.
I’m raising money for breast cancer, after all, but I’m running for me.
Hey, hey, hey! You can still REGISTER, too. Or simply DONATE to my team and we can make a difference together. Thank you.
This post is third in a series I’m writing as a blog ambassador for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run For The Cure. You can read about my motivations here and find out some easy fundraising tips here.