So I spent the last two months of 2011 in a chair in front of a
computer. I mean, I ran my mud race in November, sat down and didn't get
back up until Jan 5th (wrote a paper and defended some research, got a
Master's degree). I like to say I did a Scott Jurek.
Now I'm moved to another state and
getting ready to put my body back in order. I've run 6 times since Nov
and rode a bike 7 miles the other day. That's not much exercise. I'm
going to pick a couple of races to run during Spring and Summer and
start my training.
I really started running less than a
year and a half ago. I've discovered that I love it and that it makes
my life better in many ways. I've had people comment that I'm nicer when
I'm routinely running and my daughter actually told me to go for a run
when I was grumpy one day. My thing is that writing about running
motivates me and it's rewarding to hear from people that it helps
motivate them. This is really a rough time to convince myself to get out
of bed early enough to get the morning run in and of course it doesn't
help that it feels like I'm starting from scratch.
One
of the things that always amazes me is that people think you have to
have a particular kind of body or have some innate love of running to do
things like a marathon or ultra. The truth is just about anyone can go
from little or no running to half marathon or more. It's all mental. The
real problem for most people is not their knees or arches, although
that's what they'll talk about. The real problem is that people think
running sucks! It's uncomfortable, it's tiring, it hurts. I think that
just means you're doing it wrong!
Not every person who
goes out to run a race is going to win right? So especially when you are
just going into it, why train as though that's the goal. The goal is to
finish the race and have a good time doing it. That's my goal for
training as well. Of course I push myself, but the truth is if a run is
truly miserable, or if running routinely becomes miserable, I'll drop it
like a guinea pig peeing in my hand.
Exercise
is supposed to make your life better. It cleanses the mind and helps
put things in perspective. It's great time for deep thinking, or hanging
out with someone. In a world where every thought is about to be
interrupted by the ring of a phone or ding of a message, it may be one
of the only places our phones have not infiltrated (I stopped by a
restaurant restroom the other day in which the guy on the pot was
chatting on the phone).
Now is the time to start training for the Spring/Summer race season. Let me know what you are running, biking, mudding.
Good running everybody!
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