reflection, perspective & appreciation

Whoa, my title today is all deep & serious! That's strange for me!

So you know, sometimes a run is just a run. Nothing to write about, all good, no problems, not super fast, etc. Today wasn't one of those runs. The run itself was actually fine in the end .... but ....

I haven't ran much since my 1/2 a few weeks ago - I was being very BAD last week - not eating well + not getting enough sleep = no running.

So I knew I had to kick it in the pants this weekend & get going. Saturday night it is. Nope. No motivation. At all. I had some work obligations super early Sunday morning so I decided to take care of those & hit the gym Sunday instead.

I got on the treadmill, all fine & good. I think I've said like a gazillion times that I so hate the first 3 miles of any run. Today? No exception. I looked down thinking I had done at least 4 .... nope. 1.5. Yikes.

I almost called it quits, because you know, somedays you have it, somedays you don't...& I'm ok with that. But decided I should hang in until at least 3 to see how I was feeling.

3 miles & all of a sudden ..... my tunes are good. My shoes feel great. I can speed up just a bit. My mind is clear & ready to go. Weird how it takes me 3 miles to get there.

Here's where reflection, perspective & appreciation come in. I have none of that before mile 3.

Reflection - I started to think about my last year. Last 6 months specifically. Something just kicked in over the last 6 months. Got faster. Went farther. Felt better. Awesome.

Perspective - It's strange how when you become a distance runner that anything under 3 miles is just a waste of getting sweaty. If I had stopped at mile 2 I would have went home pouting.

But I remember very vividly when 2 miles was a goal I never thought I could reach. I remember when 2 miles took me like 25 minutes. Wow, has my perspective changed over the last few years!

Appreciation - This isn't a problem for me very often. I'm usually a super positive person (sometimes to a fault!) I feel like I really do try to take time to appreciate where I am, what I have & where I'm going. I was struggling with this at first today.

Not because I was having a bad run, but I had alot of ups & downs this past week .... & it's sometimes a little hard to bring those 'ups' to the top of my list & stay positive & confident in myself. Funny how a run can do that for me.

I really love running. For lots of reasons:
I can eat pizza. (note that I still *shouldn't*, but I can)
It clears my head.
My legs are strong.
It's uninterrupted think time.

But today reminded me to be thankful for my health because that allows me to run, thankful that I have people in my life who love & care about me & thankful for really awesome friends I've gotten to know through running.

So there you go. A deep serious blog post about a little 7 miler today! I feel refreshed & ready for the week. Come on Monday, I'm ready for you!