Today I woke up wanting to run. Most days it takes a good 2 hours before I even want to think about running. I’m not the best morning person. Today I was feeling motivated and encouraged, which was good news because yesterday I was in a funk the first part of the day and sat on the bike all grumpy for an hour with no motivation to work hard. It took all I had just to make it past 30 minutes and somehow I convinced myself to say on until 45 then 60. Little bits at a time usually does the trick. Just motivation to sweat so that I could better my mood really.
So today I warmed up 15 minutes, ran 30 minutes hardish and cooled down for 40 minutes. I started out the 30 minutes at 6:53 pace and realized it was too fast 5 minutes in. Bummer. But I quickly reminded myself, you can’t jump right back to where you were. I took it down two notches to 7:03 and held that until the last 10 minutes where I sped up to 6:58 and then back to 6:53 for the last 5 minutes. It felt good. The effort was there but it wasn’t out of control. Lot’s of smiles, deep breaths, good music, some singing (hopefully just mouthing words) & a good book. If I was doing an interval workout, I wouldn’t read during my on sets, but this pace was controlled enough that I was able to read. I’m reading Rob Lowe’s book – Stories I only tell my friends, it’s pretty good. Don’t ask me why I’m reading it, picked it out to be a mindless entertaining read and it’s doing the job. Pretty interesting too- he was one driven kid trying to break into acting.
As I was running and throughly enjoying the endorphins the hard work was providing me, I thought a lot about being content where I am right now. Stop comparing things to where I was, where I want to be and to whatever everyone else is doing. I think this is something we need to wake up every morning and remind ourselves of depending on our circumstances. Back in December, I was running 10 mile days 4 days a week and was loving it. Now is not the time for it. One 10 mile day plus a long run with some shorties mixed in is where I’m at this week and that’s just fine.
I think I’ll run the Hoosier Half this weekend– I want to get 20 miles in on Saturday and I’ll sandwich the race in between the 20. I’ll push myself during the race, but I’m not sure what that will produce and honestly it doesn’t matter. I’m just going to be in the moment. Enjoy it for what it is, no thinking about what I could be doing or have the potential to do. I am where I am NOW. Working hard feels good no matter where your current shape is.
 So completely irrelevant to the running, I thought I throw in some of my favorite pics from this past week:Â
Family pic at my parents house. I wanted to take a picture since we were wearing clothes that weren’t workout clothes. We had a major fail trying to get Marshall in the picture, so just let him do his thing and it turned out pretty good anyway:
Marshal and Cadence. Besties, or so Marshall thinks:
Twins and let’s just note that this kid ALWAYS has a ball in hand:
And this is one I love. The neighbor kids who I mentioned in my last post came over yesterday and played basketball in the front yard, while I enjoyed the sun & although they didn’t realize it, they were highly entertaining to Marshall and gave me a nice break. Gonna miss this house and neighborhood.
That’s all!Â
What do you do to stay content right where you are?Â
What’s your favorite part of a hard run? (My answer: Endorphins)