Not Created Equal

This is a quick post, but I had to get it out. Not all runs are created equal. No matter if you have been running for 5 weeks or 15 years, you’re gonna have some runs that aren’t so great.

Lately, all of my runs have been awesome, whether they are 5 or 15 miles, and it’s been great, so it was basically due my time for a less than stellar run. This morning when I woke up to run it was thundering and there was a chance of storms, so I moved my 10-miler to the treadmill at the gym. I’ve had no problem long running it on the treadmill in the past, but today was different.

Let me vent:

• The gym was hotter than normal, talking like 75 degrees inside with no fans or vents on at all (I use the same treadmill every time because there is always a vent that spews cool air periodically). Nope. Not today sucker!
• I was dripping sweat two miles in and the first two miles felt like I had been running for an hour.
• I could not establish a groove for the life of me, the whole first half of the run I was trying to ‘get in it’ and it just wasn’t happening.
• Mentally, I wanted to give up. I probably tried talking myself out of the second half of the run at least three times. Excuses, I was trying to excuse myself. Honestly though, it was mentally TOUGH, and I have no clue why.
• My legs were feeling dead, pooping out on me, and not wanting to cooperate.
• Acid reflux. Last night I covered my grilled chicken in Sriracha which was a great idea at the time, but this morning for miles 0-5.65 I was burping like nobody’s business, and everything after mile 5.66 I was trying to not puke.

That is my vent and end of crappy attitude for the day. I’m glad I finished, nothing worth having comes easily, if it was easy then everyone else would be doing it, I’m stronger because of it, enter every motivational quote or saying you can find.

Basically, sometimes things just suck, but that doesn’t mean you give up or quit. Too often it’s easy to throw in the towel because ‘it’s harrrrrrd’ wah wah wah. Take some cheese with your wine and go sit in the corner sulking because something was hard. See how far you get with that. In times like these you’ve just gotta put on your big girl panties and muscle through it, and make yourself awesome.

Have a good Thursday friends, and go water your own grass.

Dumping In

Yes, you read that right! I’m not dropping in, I’m dumping in because I haven’t posted in what seems like forever. Let’s see if I can remember what all has happened!

First, last Thursday was my awesome mom’s birthday!

Upon her return from vacation in Colorado, I made her a super delicious chocolate cake from scratch with cream cheese frosting (her request), and crushed up mint Oreos on the sides. Boxed chocolate cake will never stand a chance in my family again after this masterpiece!

It’s a good thing that I can bake because I am sure not a good photographer. It’s also a good thing that I run because if not, I would stay home baking and eating my life away.

My St. Patrick’s day began with a 12-mile run with my friend Jen, remember her from Tulsa?

She is like the sweetest girl ever and is running her first half marathon in 3.5 weeks! I would be lying if I said the run didn’t get my out of my comfort zone…for once I didn’t map out the course, didn’t know where we were going, and had no clue of what our course would be like, Jen did all the steering for this one! The hills made me a little mad and I think it’s just because I wasn’t mentally prepared for them, and where we ran was hillllllly. BUT it was good for me to have a challenge and take the backseat for a change.

After that I spent the rest of the day in downtown Kansas City with some awesome friends and Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean. Lots of people don’t know that I am huge country fan and needless to say I was in heaven at the concert. Sighhhhhh. Plus, Luke and Jason are two artists who sound better live than on recordings in my opinion, which is rare and totally great to find!

It was sold out, loud, and SO MUCH FUN!

Sunday was back to real life which included some rest, because Saturday night at the concert I was yawning at 10:30pm, and Sunday night was IN bed around 10pm, which is relatively early for me. Good thing I got some rest though because Monday I had the best run everrrrrr!

Well, best run to date everrrrrrr! I was up at 5:30am (unusual for me), and decided to hit the treadmill at the gym for a speed session. I wasn’t sure how my legs would do after two back to back double digit runs (again, unusual for me) but wanted to give it a go anyways! I didn’t have an exact plan for the run, except that I wanted to listen to my body and run at a slightly uncomfortable fast pace. I did a two mile warm-up at a 10:30 pace, then started creeping the speed up. I held miles 3-5 at a 9:30-9:40 pace, and ran the last half mile at an 8:34 pace which is something I have NEVER done before.

This is silly, but it bothered me a little that I could see the upper half of my reflection in the window because I was getting really self conscious about my stride and form, worrying that it looked bad or off, but just kept along. The last half mile I took out one of my earbuds from my iPod to listen to my breathing and I could really feel my heart rate being pushed, and my breathing was hard to control. I completed 5.5 miles, and after my cool down as I was leaving, a lady who had been lifting (and watching me apparently) asked how far I went. I told her, then she told me that I have an awesome gait and running form, and that she could tell I was a runner! I cannot express how stinking happy this made me, because that whole time I was worrying about looking stupid and have worked so hard on my form over time to make it the best I can. We talked for a while and I made a new friend! Leslie, you have no idea how stupidly happy your compliment made me!

I hope that you are having a great week of workouts so far! I’m looking forward to another weekend of back to back double digit runs and maybe even getting to run in the rain! The half marathon madness begins in 3.5 weeks and here’s to getting faster! Have a FANTASTIC week!

Believe In Yourself

This is something that I feel is said a lot, but often times people who say it don’t actually get it, if you know what I mean.

Growing up, kids are told that they can do anything they set their mind to. Parents, grandparents, teachers, any adult will tell a kid they can do anything they want, but what happens when that kid grows up and experiences some of life and it’s realities, is it still possible to do anything their heart desires?

Of course it is. But how? You have to convince yourself first.

Today I went on a 10-mile run with a friend, who was running his first double-digit distance ever, and four miles farther than his previous personal distance record of 6 miles. He’s training for his first half marathon next month and we made the plans to do this run together because I knew that it would be a challenge.

For me, it was an experience because I had to mentally prepare on his behalf, thinking back to the days where anything more than four miles was scary, and put myself in his shoes so I could keep his spirits up during this seemingly daunting task. He reminded me of how badly we can get into our own heads and how our mentalities can tear us down because we let them do so too easily. It took a constant flow of motivation and reminding him that he COULD complete this run and that he was strong and capable enough to do work on that run.

This got me to thinking of why people don’t chase after their dreams with all they have, and how much fear is able to hold people back from accomplishing anything they desire. It is way too easy and excusable to welcome defeat with open arms and settle. Just settle. Settle down, get comfortable, and brush those ambitions under the rug because they weren’t easy to attain.

I for one, know that our minds are the most powerful things in the world and we can be our own worst enemy or our own biggest fans simply by what thoughts we allow to flood our minds. My friend here that I was running with, would mention how hard the run is, when it was still early on. I had to cut him off right there–I knew that just by him speaking out that this run would be difficult, it would be difficult because he was telling himself it was. We can convince ourselves up and down of anything we want, be it positive or negative. This really motivated me to keep the positive words flowing because I knew that if he was mentally convinced he could run ten miles, then he’d be able to.

He just had to believe.

It’s taken a lot of work on my part to make the choice to think positively, not only with running but in a vast majority of life situations. I have had so many runs where I would develop a poor attitude, thoughts, and feelings about myself and would have to snap myself out of it because when you’re feeling that pathetic, it doesn’t help you at all when you’ve gotta be with your own bad attitude for miles on end.

If I didn’t learn to make the choice to think positively, there is no way on God’s green earth that I would have been able to run a couple of marathons, and handfuls of half marathons. There’s no way I would be dreaming of running a marathon in every state, wanting to raise money for charities, and get my story out for other to hear so that just maybe, just maybe, I could impact a few lives.

It’s all in our heads, and all you have to do is believe in yourself. Convince yourself of your success, and very soon, your success will be staring you right in the face and taking you places you never dreamed possible.