Saturday, February 23, 2013

Inertia

I got out for a 3-mile run this afternoon.  It sucked. (My leg injuries were fine...just lack of conditioning). It was my first run in 11 days.  That's a big part of why it sucked.

I'm caught in a trap right now.  Running is a lot harder for me right now than it was in my glory days of 2009-2011.  Therefore it's less fun, and so it's easier to find an excuse not to go.  

Too much work.  It's icy out there.  I don't feel well.  I didn't sleep well enough.

They're all true.  But I can't make all these excuses all the time.  I must run more.  As I get in better shape, it won't be so unpleasant and I won't dread it so much.  

I can recognize the trap I'm in.  I know exactly what I have to do and what I need my mindset to be.  I'm just having trouble freeing myself.  There's no magic motivation switch I flip back on. 

Could today be that start?  I made excuses all week.  I woke up to a freezing drizzle this morning, went and got breakfast, and settled in for a lazy by myself.  (Chris is in Wisconsin on her own adventure).  I ate my breakfast sandwich and donuts.  I watched two episodes of Game of Thrones. I resigned myself to running tomorrow, and flipped on the Flyers game, and took a nice three-cat-assisted nap during the second period.  

(I swear that cats must radiate some kind of sleepiness drug into the air.)

But THEN I went out and ran. 

I'm going to be sore tomorrow, but between a really tough day of work on Monday and picking Chris up from the airport that night, I know I won't run on Monday.  So I'm going to try 2 miles tomorrow morning and get myself out of the bear trap.

8 comments:

  1. I know EXACTLY how you're feeling...I was sucked in that vortex forever. 2 miles in my HR zone of 135, which was almost a walk. 4 months until I found the joy to run again. It'll get there, don't give up!!

    Loving your cats, they make me laugh. :)

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  2. It's time to sign up for an event 2 or 3 months out. I know where you are coming from. Sometimes its hard to break out of a funk. If I have something on the calendar to train for, it gets me off the couch!

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    1. I'm signed up a lot of races in March and April. I can run the 5k I'm signed up for on March 10. The 8k on March 16 is a little more worrisome! But I have a busy race season coming up.

      I havr a 10k in April. I hope I can segue that into getting myself up into double digit mileage by early summer to do a half or maybe full in the fall.

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    2. You're signed up for too many races...

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  3. Find some friends to run with. Then on the next run go out ahead of them. Tell yourself that instead of your friends they are a pack of dogs chasing you. You can't look back, you can't slow down, above all else you have to keep the distance.

    If dogs don't work, then you can always try a bear!

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    1. I will pretend my cats are chasing me.

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    2. ...and perhaps their evolutionary cousins!

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