Running positive
I’ve had to work a lot longer to lose this baby weight the second time around. Life stresses have just gotten in the way of time and energies. In a recent stretch of child-illnesses my exercising was sidelined for a few days weeks.
Three weeks of sick children put a massive damper on my gym-time and when I finally got back on the treadmill on Thursday I really wanted to run a solid – running only – sub-30 minute 5K.
It didn’t happen.
It’s no surprise really, I was a little out of shape, have been intensely stressed. But, while I was running I chose in one moment to turn the thoughts around. Sure, I had a goal, a rather unrealistic one, that went the way of the Dodo, but I did manage to show up at the gym. Points, right?
So, not only did I GO to the gym. I ran. I ran for 40 minutes actually. I ran over my goal of 3 miles for a total of 3.63 miles. I walked a few times to catch my breath and swill some water. To balance out the walking time I ran some sprints. I used to run sprints at 6.0 mph for one minute on and one minute off. Now, I ran an entire mile at 6.0 — and I run sprints at 6.5 and 7.0 mph.
I spent years working out when I was younger but I never got near the intensity I do now. I never would have dreamed I could run a solid mile at 6.0 or do a few miles of sprints at 7.0 for one minute and walking for one minute.
This is a lot to be proud of and I need to give myself this moment of success.
In spite of myself, I was actually proud of my accomplishment.
I am deciding to think about a lot more things in this turn-it-around-to-be-more-positive way.
Tags: positive thinking, running
November 24th, 2010 at 11:54 am
My grandpa and I were talking about something similar last night. It’s amazing how we can get into running ruts (sprint a mile, walk a mile) and never think to up the pace or distance because it becomes habit forming. Then one day you get a wild inclination to try something new and it blows you away at how amazingly awesome you really are. Sometimes we just have to breakthrough our own barriers and make our minds work positively (you can sprint a mile at 7.0) and not negatively (you’ve never done this before, you’ll never finish at that pace, and you’ll look like a fool dry heaving on the side of the road for trying). Keep up the positive thinking!!
November 24th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
I used to run on my treadmill at 5.3 speed and I have gradually moved up to 5.7. I thought that was as fast as I could go. After reading this, I tried 6.0 thinking I would just do it for one minute and next thing I knew it was 2 miles later! I didn’t know I had it in me. So thanks!!