Hey everyone! It’s been a while! So expect a long post as usual 😂 I’m writing today because I achieved a running first! 8K! But first a little background story as to why I decided to run beyond my usual 5K!
The other week I had my karate grading, I was going from brown (3rd kyu) to brown and white (2nd kyu). As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the fitness I’ve gained from running has made a huge difference to my karate! I’ve been able to do a lot of extra training and I can keep up in the most gruelling of classes. I really noticed the difference in my grading too! I was in control of my breathing and went in strong until the very end. It was still tough of course, but just like when I’m having a hard run, I pulled out everything I had in me and pushed through! Anyway, towards the end of my grading my Sensei gave me an extra, more advanced kata to perform in addition to the one I had to do. And when I got my results he said he was really impressed with all the extra training I’ve been doing and I smashed the extra kata so he DOUBLE GRADED ME! so now I’m a 1st kyu brown and black belt which means my next grading will be for my black belt! (I’ve attached a picture of me showing off my new belt cause I’m really chuffed 😂)
Which brings me to running beyond 5K! My shodan black belt grading is gonna be the most physically demanding thing I have ever done in my life and it’ll be hard no matter what! But the one thing I can do help myself in addition to training my socks off is to up my fitness even more. I’ve been in a pretty consistent place in terms of my fitness lately which is by no means a bad thing! But if I want to improve it I need to change things up a bit! Running has improved my fitness like nothing else so I thought about aiming to run faster, but I like to enjoy my runs and the best way for me to do that is to run at a comfortable pace which brought me to the decision to run further and for longer. So I thought why not build up to 10K from 5K?
My usual run route consists of 2 laps that make up 5K so I decided today that I would try and add a third lap taking me to 7.5K. It was a beautiful morning for a run! But at the start for the first time in a while I experienced a little bit of the toxic 10s which made me wonder if I could run beyond 5K. But I pushed past it and the crazy part is that once I had done 5K, I had a whole new lease of energy and my last lap was some of the fastest, strongest and most comfortable running I’d done of the whole run! So when I got to the end of my third lap (7.5K) I was feeling really good and figured I’d round it up to 8K! It took me just over 50 minutes to do and knowing I can run for that long is an awesome feeling. These last few months have really made me consider how amazing the human body is. I feel like a machine! 😂
So that’s the story of my 8K and my decision to try and get to 10K! After today I’m sure I can do it 
just building up to it! watch this space! Happy running! 😁
Running belt or alternative? 
W5R2 under my belt
Armband or belt for my phone?
Armband of waist belt
W7R2 New “running” belt 🙈
