No, I don't mean I have two months to run 12 miles. Although as slow as I run and as hot as it is, it might just take me that long. What I mean is in less than two months, I have to be able to run 12 miles. In the same day. In addition to making it through 25 obstacles. The course is terrifying. Is anyone else laughing out loud as they're reading this, because I'm laughing out loud as I write it.
I did two hours of spin on Saturday. Got to my class early and rode until class started and then John.The.Spin.God extended class to 75 minutes, so it was a good workout. Stayed in my grubby, smelly clothes because we were just running errands and sticking around home, and sometime after supper I decided I would take advantage of the folks visiting and head out for a run, something I usually can't do when my kiddo is home with me.
Told myself I would knock out 5 miles because, as I tell all my reluctant runner friends, running is a mental exercise more than a physical. Your body can do much more than you give it credit for and, I reasoned, I can do over 2 hours of leg-shredding spin without dying, so heading out for a 5 mile jog should be easy breezy.
And it was, for the first mile, it was. I was trucking along, listening to my new tunes, feeling very much like a runner. And then it started to get dark. The streetlights came on. The mosquitos started biting. And my stupid brain filled with about 8 million reasons to quit, to turn around and go home. I decided louder music would drown out the voices in my head, so I cranked up my iPod even louder, but that just made the voices start screaming, "YOUR LEGS ARE SORE...YOU ALREADY DID 2 HOURS OF SPIN!!" "IT'S GETTING SCARY DARK OUT HERE...YOU ARE RISKING YOUR LIFE JUST TO RUN??" "THESE BUGS ARE MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO RUN. DO YOU WANT TO GET WEST NILE??" Ignore the voices, ignore the voices, sing louder, sing LOUDER.
But the voices in my head were relentless, as the voices in your head sometimes are. And I stopped. As if I ran into a brick wall. I turned around, and I jogged back home.
It wasn't as if I didn't get a good extra workout in...I did. So I'm not mad at myself and the crazy voices in my head for that. I just can't believe I listened. I thought I was tougher than that. All objective evidence indicated I should have been able to do 5 miles that night. I know based on personal experience that once you hit your stride and settle into a good pace, you can run and run and run and run Forrest Gump style. (Not sure where that guy slept when he was running because he missed his Jenny...were we meant to believe he ran 24-7?)
I learned a lot when I trained for the half marathon back in '09 that I didn't finish because I fell down and busted up my knee, and the most important one was that I could run as far as I believed I could run. I figured out how to quiet the doubting, negative voices in my head, no matter how loud they screamed at me. I found my zone, and I stayed in it until my run was done for the day.
I'm not sure why I couldn't find it on Saturday.
But I better find it soon. October 6th is looming on the horizon. And it won't matter how many one-armed push-ups I can do if I can't run 12 miles.
My next chance to go out and do 5 miles is this weekend. If you see me running through the neighborhood, and I appear to be talking to myself, I'm not schizophrenic, at least not according to the clinical definition. I will be telling the voices in my head that want me to wimp out and go home to shut up. I might have to get downright nasty and pull out some cuss words to get them to really listen, so plug your children's ears if you're out on a family bike ride or after-dinner stroll. But I'm not going to listen to them this weekend.
Because in less than two months, they're gonna have a whole lot more to yell about. Fire. Ice. Electric Shock. And if I don't learn to drown them out now, I'll never get my orange headband. So here's to quieting the voices and just getting it done.
No comments:
Post a Comment