week six report - and the first half

The money diet continues to work well for me. I won't bore you with the minute details of what I spent on what - other than that I made a stupid impulse buy this week of an $8 bottle of nail polish I don't really like. Impulse purchases are far and few between these days. I find that having a fixed amount of cash for the week forces me to think carefully about where my money goes. Wanting to get to the weekend with money left over for some cold brewski's keeps me on track so I'm not spending money all willy nilly during the week.

So I made it to the end of the week with $30 cash remaining. Ordinarily I would bank that $30 into my clothing/gifts slush fund, but not this week. Nope, this weekend I ran my very first half marathon and I felt as though I deserved a little extra pampering (ie, beer and greasy food) when it was said and done. So I rolled that $30 into the new week's fund to beef it up a bit. I've always believed that planned indulgences keep me on track the rest of the time, and I've been planning this indulgence a while.

In other money diet news, I got my mid month paycheque last week. I paid all the bills (phone, cellphone, car insurance, hydro, and mastercard) and had money left over to dump on the line of credit. That felt pretty freaking good. I think it was the smallest credit card bill I have had since having a credit card. I'm still spending on the credit card, but anything other than gas or groceries that goes on the card gets paid off right away. Like that very day. That I have now got myself into a financial position where I can pay an $800+ deposit on my wedding dress without having to rely on credit feels pretty awesome. I just wonder why I haven't been doing this all along . . . better now than never though, eh?

Okay, so and THEN I ran my very first half marathon (21.1km) on Sunday at the Pacific Road Runners First Half (first half marathon of the season, that is). It went okay. The first 15km were awesome, I was flying along, feeling pretty good, and on pace to go sub two hours which would have been INCREDIBLE for a first half. Things started to fall apart after that. I got some major cramping in my hip flexor which grew into searing nerve pain all down my left leg, which reduced me to a pace just short of a crawl for a few km. My friend Janice appeared like an angel out of the darkness (definitely the darkest moments of the race for me) biking along the course, handing me a water bottle, taking my jacket, and dishing out encouragement like nothing else. I'm not sure if I've ever loved anyone as much as I loved her right then.

Finishing the race was a total mental game, just convincing myself to push through the pain and keep going. I had to stop and stretch a couple of times which cost me a few min, but it was extremely necessary. I ran the whole thing though, didn't walk any of it, and finished with a respectable time of 2:06:52. It was a big learning curve (next time I'll wear my water belt so I can have a sip whenever I want to, not have to wait 20 min for the next water station, and I'll also start some hip flexor exercises), and although those last few km's were brutal, I'm kinda sorta looking forward to the next one.

I'm staying off my feet a few days though. Things hurt.

Paul also ran and placed 9th overall with a personal best time of 1:10:48. That's crazy fast, but hey, he's a crazy guy.