Monday, August 15, 2005

Back in the Saddle

Laced up my shoes, holstered my water bottle, and set out to run five miles this morning, despite nagging doubts.

Despite nagging doubts, I just ran.

I ran without thinking: "Is this too fast? Should I slow down? If I don't slow down, I'll never finish," blah blah blah, etc. etc. etc.

Result? Ran my fastest four miles ever.

And then walked a bit and ran a bit for the last mile.

Total result? I ran five miles about one minute (ok, 1.6 minutes) faster than it took to finish my 8K (which, by the way, is 4.970969536 miles).

As a bonus, I discovered I was fine afterwards. I didn't die. The world didn't stop spinning. Nothing bad happened.

Moral?

Stop thinking so much.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What? You mean the running police didn't jump out from behind the bushes and throw you off the World Championship team b/c you walked? No way!
have you ever read any of John "the penguin' Bingham's stuff? waddleon dot com. He's run a squillion slow marathons and made a squillion $$$ wwrtiting about them - and he trains 6/1 or 5/2 ALL THE TIME. Please feel free to use my running motto - it's not about them, it's about me. Me me me

Take care

LBTEPA

Anonymous said...

Great run! Take out all those crazy thoughts and doubts that go through our heads and we can actually do it!

a.maria said...

as usual, we're on the same wave-length (for slightly different reasons)

this mornings run, i was um... distracted... so i didnt look much at my watch. what happend? new PR.

i was thinking the same after i ran "huh. maybe distraction from the watch is a good thing" (and obviously, what the distraction WAS helped, but i'm just sayin.. i think not caring so much about the time ends up working in our favor!)

Riona said...

That's really encouraging to read. I've found it to be true about so many: if I stress about a dinner party, the food turns out bad. If I relax and enjoy cooking and sipping my glass of wine, the food is great - and everybody has a better time when the cook isn't stressing. Congrats on a great time and a great attitude.

Anonymous said...

I'm so proud of you. I look forward to running with you on the CCT. "Go the distance!"

jeanne said...

Thanks everyone! Someday I swear, I'll get the hang of this running thing!
and Andrea: You rock! and you're gonna kick my a**!!