I Ran Today (9)

I ran a lot yesterday. I ran the most I’ve ran since I started running again. I ran an amount of time and a distance I didn’t think I could do anymore. But I ran again today and I’m much more proud of that. Yesterday was somewhat easy, at least when it comes to will power. I had been working all day. I’d been mentally preparing for my first “long run” on the Nike running program. I knew all day I was going to go out and kick that run’s ass. So I had adrenaline going for me up until the last minute of the 35 minute run.

Today, I had none of that. I worked for about an hour and a half in the morning. I went home, ate breakfast and took a nap on my giant beanbag with my dog. Then I did one more delivery to reach my goal for the week and came home to watch football and take another nap. Yep, two naps on a Saturday. Real I’m motivated shit, right? The games I was watching went right up until a pro wrestling pay-per-view I wanted to watch.

I could have easily said, “I have too many things I want to do today and I did my long run yesterday so there’s no need to go again today”. I’m proud of myself for not doing that. I went for 7 minutes that were more painful than any part of the 35 minutes I did last night. They were painful because I didn’t want to do them. I was in relaxed (aka lazy) Saturday mode. I knew my day would consist of football, pro wrestling, and beer. But I still pushed myself out the door to do 7 minutes, and 7 minutes will always be better than no minutes.

Alright, so let’s talk about yesterday’s run. It was phenomenal. My longest run since I got back into this was 25 minutes, but yesterday I added 10 more minutes to that. My longest distance was 2 miles, but yesterday I added .47 miles to that. I did 2.47 miles over 35 minutes. I know that is slow, but I also know that isn’t too far off from 3.12 miles (5 kilometers). I wasn’t totally sure a 5k could happen before the end of the year before yesterday’s run. But now I’m positive it will.

I will be exhausted and embarrassed pushing my fat ass from the start to the finish of a 5k this year, but I yesterday showed me I can do it. Covering the distance won’t be the issue. The tough part will be having the personal bravery to put myself into a 5k with hundreds or thousands of people. The struggle will be getting on the starting line and thinking of all the negative that could happen. Once an organized event starts, the people are always amazing and supportive. All of the other shit fades away quickly.

Seven minutes was tough today because 35 minutes was tough last night. That’s okay. Not skipping the seven because of the 35 is what makes me believe I’m capable of so much. I did more to improve my running skills last night, but I’m a much better runner because I ran today.