Karma clearly didn’t appreciate me whining that the thrill of just completing each day is gone and smacked me upside the head with that failed run W6D2. So I took nothing for granted planning Day 3.
Psychologically, Day 2 took more out of me than I would have expected. I’ve had very linear progress so far, and it hadn’t occurred to me at this point that I wouldn’t be able to complete a run. Hate it, yes. Struggle through it, sure. But just not be able to finish it? Not on my radar.
Until I didn’t.
Thursday was a rest day. It was also a long damn day at work. I got home at 9:30, exhausted, the sum total of my daily nutrition being four soy lattes, a movie-theater size box of Dots and 2 packs of peanut butter crackers. Not setting myself up for a good run on Friday, if I could even drag myself out of bed to do it, which I couldn’t. Came home not as late but just as exhausted. Two-day break it is, then.
Saturday I was full of excuses, reasons why I shouldn’t — couldn’t, even — do Day 3. I didn’t even want to try, which was when I knew it was more than my usual exercise-aversion, because I’ve generally looked forward to moving through the weeks.
I may have become blasé about the successes I was having, but clearly they still mean more to me than I realized. I didn’t plan to repeat Day 2, considering it a collection of circumstances rather than an indication of readiness, but I really didn’t want to fail twice in a row. Old thought patterns die hard, and 5+ weeks of successes were quickly overshadowed by one bad run. One run which now defined me and reminded me that of course I couldn’t do this. I never liked running, never was good at it, what was I thinking thinking I could do this? Clearly I couldn’t. The proof was right there in Day 2.
So I had a choice. Stay in bed, put it off ‘til Sunday when I would have a fresh set of excuses and forget the running, forget the blog, forget the progress. Or go out and run.
Not quite as simple as it sounds, because if I went out and ran with the express purposes of proving to myself that I could and I failed again, well, that was gonna be ugly. I’d rather simply suspect I was right than know it for sure.
Except that at some point while this internal debate was raging, as I was trying hard to explain to myself that staying in bed and catching up on some much needed sleep was the best use of my day, I got up and put on my running clothes.
While I was telling myself that I’d still been living on caffeine and sugar with nary a drop of water consumed and how miserable would that make me, I was downloading a new podcast. Tying my shoes as I thought about how much hotter it’d gotten since I wasted those early dawn hours.
And walking out the door, one hideously failed run behind me, facing the 25 minutes of Week 6 Day 3.
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