JTG: This will just take a moment

MILES 199

Push pace run down, 3 miles at an 8:20….target pace…. my 8 mile average was 8:31…. I feel hopeful. It was hard, but maybe.   Sunday I took my run outside which was like the greatest thing ever.  A smooth 3 miles not pushing to hard…. low muscular tension run….. 8:15 average.  I am more than hopeful.  But it was harder than it was easier. I need 10 more of those babies.

The spring season is slowly creeping up on me….. I am having to focus more on doing my running drills correct and pushing all else aside…… It is do or die time and this is where I always let it slip….. I lose focus….. I don't push myself enough…. as the season draws closer I start doing the bare minimum…… and it starts to slip away.  I can not do that if I want a 1:49.  I have to really try this time. I have to give it everything I have got.  No holding back.

And yet, the very essence of distance running teaches us to hold back…. to save something for the end…. it's what we do…. it's an endurance athlete trade…. to not give it all…. to steadily endure.

And my appetite is fading…. I think when I get nervous or stressed out I stop eating.  And I need to eat to stay strong…. I need muscle to power through these races.  OMG SPRING IS ALMOST UPON US and I am starting to freakout. I WANT THIS SO BADLY.

Running a half marathon is not easy.  Typically picking up the race packet is the exciting part…. eating all day long is nice too…. but then evening rolls in and I am laying out my clothes and getting ready for bed and I am so nervous I can't sleep.  Then I have to cry about it.  Thinking I will never make it…. it is going to be so hard…. I will inevitably fail.  But last year……. I didn't fail……. Then I lay in bed tossing turning…. looking at the clock…… then I wake up….. eat a peanut butter bagel even though my stomach wants nothing to do with it…… and I go to the race and I stand at the start line…. nervous…freezing….scared…..ready to go back home and go to bed……I want to give up NOW.  because I am just SO SCARED I will fail.  It all seems so out of reach.


And then that dreaded first mile cuts through my head like a painful unbearable reminder of how hard it all is……. it is deafening and blinding and torture and then somewhere between the miles….when my legs, breath, mind, and heart have all synchronized and it is mile after mile always 1 mile at a time I am just running…… and I am content to be there and I feel freedom and pain and beauty and I am elated and overcome with a sense of overwhelming happiness and accomplishment.  That a girl with no athletic ability….a girl who struggled with every step and breath at one point in the training…. could be here…..doing this….loving every moment of it….. and at that point I am not just a girl….. I am not a halflete…. I am not even an athlete.  I am a runner and I am in perfect time with my body and my breath and the world.  And all is at peace and everything is perfect and I couldn't imagine it being any better. And I hope for a good time and I hope I can maintain pace…..and there are moments in the race where it becomes hard and there are moments in the race where it is the most natural easy thing in the world…… and these moments stay with me forever…. and they make me who I am….. it's all about the moment and what you do at that instance how you overcome how you take it all in…covered in sweat and defeat and victory, exhausted and elated all at the same time….life is just a bunch of moments…. and you can chose to enjoy and appreciate, be strong and rise above, you can chose to string moment after moment like mile after mile into some kind of wonderful……

AND you can live in those blissful moments…... forever….. and if the time is right…..say….1:49……. that moment is truly magic.












Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 9, 2015 at 12:08 PM

    Of course you can crush the half marathon. BRING IT ON.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shan_FitnesscoachMarch 10, 2015 at 7:39 AM

    :) Oh I HOPE!!!!! 149 is FAST! I can't wait to hear how well you do! You are killing your times these days!!!!!

    ReplyDelete

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