Last week I was a little upset. I ran a 10 minutes mile and felt old. This week I ran a 10 minute mile and I was pumped. The difference? 28 seconds & 4 miles. I ran 9.4 miles and about died. That’s literally the farthest I’ve ever run. It was a 10 minute mile too [okay, 9:58]. This time though, I was ecstatic rather than upset. Why is that? [Besides the face I may be bipolar].
Instead of focusing on the time it took me to accomplish the run, I focused on just running. While running the 5 mile run I came up with all sorts of excuses on why I should walk and take it easy. They were pretty convincing and I did. I gave up and walked a good while.
On Saturday, I just ran. I didn’t stop . Instead of worrying about how well I performed, or how fast I was going, I just did it. End of story. I didn’t think I could run almost 10 miles on Saturday and I really had no desire to do that far. But instead of making excuses for why I shouldn’t or couldn’t do it, I just put my head down and did it.
Sometimes I get distracted by the enormity of a goal or obstacle. I see the size and I give up before I’ve started. I fail to realize all this huge goal is really is a combined sequence of smaller steps I have to take. A 9 mile run sounds far [to me anyways] but all you have to do is keep moving forward to complete it. There’s no hidden formula. Even though the obstacle make look frighteningly big, sometimes the only secret of success is successfully completing a bunch of small steps in succession. It’s not always about how fast you go or how well you do something. It’s about taking step after step and simply doing it.
I took another step today. I’m officially signed up for the Chicago Triathlon. I’m running the International Distance [1.5k Swim – 40k Bike – 10k Run]. Let’s do this.
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