Monday, March 31, 2014

Three things that I have learned from Running

I never ran in high school or college. Never. Like people were very shocked when I told them I started running. I even have this funny story about me involving the cops and me not running. Me telling them clearly, that I may walk away, but I won’t be running so there is no need for you to stand guard outside my car door. I started running back in 2003. I don’t remember the day exactly, but I know how it went down. I got an emailed regarding the Annual Corporate 5k challenge, and like so many other times in my life. I got excited, and made a snap decision to do it. (This happens quite often to me) Once I make a snap decision, I am committed for better or worse. I have been running off and on since then, (currently, I am on) and it is definitely a love/hate relationship. But it is a relationship that has taught some things over the years. I know everyone has a blog about what running teaches them, but I swear mine are a little different. 1. Effort counts. I am a slow runner. Like I have stopped and walked, and I can make better time walking, type of slow. When I schedule a long run into my weekend, I allow 15 per mile. Now, I am a little faster than that, but shit happens. I used to feel self conscious about how slow I am, but then this thought hit me. “At least, I am out here.” Yes, I am slow. Yes, Justin can run faster than me without a bit of training. But who ran 7 miles yesterday? I did. So what, if it took me forever to do it. I did it. And that effort counts. Real Life Example: I made my mom a birthday cake on Friday. I wanted it to be an old fashioned, southern, from scratch, 7 tiny layer cake. And it went okay, until something went wrong with the boiled frosting and all of it slid off the cake. It was a pitiful looking cake, but my mom loved it. God bless her, she even took some home. She knew the effort that went into that cake, and she was happy. See, effort counts. 2. There are different levels of suckiness. Now, we have already talked about how I am slow runner, but you know what I am getting faster. I am doing the weekly speed workouts. I am putting long runs in, and I think I am getting a little faster. And let me tell you, I feel good about that. I really do. Real life Lesson: Even if you are bad at something, do it anyway. If you are terrible cook, cook anyway. You can’t let what you suck at hold you back. You may never be good at it, but you can suck less. And trust me, that feels pretty damn good. 3. First mile always lies. I hear new runners say, “I started to run, but my legs hurt so I stopped” “I couldn’t breathe, so I stopped” That is the mistake, stopping. My 1st mile always suck, it is like my legs are like, “nope, we aren’t doing this”. And then most of the time, they shut up. Real life lesson: Don’t give up at the beginning; there is a good chance that this is the hardest part. There are more, but these are the ones that I remind myself of while I am hitting the pavement. In case any of you out there are wondering, I have ran 155 miles since January 1st. I am 30 miles ahead of my goal to run 500 miles in 2014.

1 comment:

  1. you are doing an awesome job - especially for being so far ahead of your scheduled runs! great life lesson points. the part about 'god bless' my mom under lesson one made me chuckle. ;-)

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