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“….don’t stand around moping, “I dunno what to do… I’m just not sure…” unless you want all of your tomorrows to look like your yesterdays.” –S. Pavlina
July 19 was my last post. YIKES! How did that much time go by? I’ve been dancing the tango with this project for a month now. The running has been on and off. And quite obviously, there has been silence in this forum as well. But I’m picking-up where I left off.
You see, I thought I’d take a week off. We were out of town for a few days…2 of the 3 days were supposed to include jogging. The first day I worked it in. The second day, it just wasn’t feasible to include a 10K run. (“It’s okay, LG…you’ll pick it up on Tuesday”). When Tuesday rolls around, I’m exhausted from my adventures and give myself permission to take the remainder of the week off to rest. That was the first spoke in the proverbial wheel of “Because I can…”
What a pleasant rest I had (yep, that’s lemons-into-lemonade for ya)! Sunday rolls around and I’m planning on trying that 10K from last Sunday. I change the scenery up a bit (thanks to my Sunday running partner) and WHAT A DISASTER!!! A-hem…I mean…the outcome wasn’t quite what I anticipated it to be…and good for me for listening acutely to my body. Yikes!!! Not failure, just feedback, right??!!! I made it half way through without stopping (Sunday’s are supposed to be 10:1 run/walk) then started a precarious stumble downhill from there. I was soooooo disappointed in myself. I soooooo wanted to return to the trail with vim and vigour, finishing strong, jogging the whole time. And WHAM!! The very opposite happened. Now how do I recover from that?
I’m pretty sure I didn’t run the week after that…or very little if I did. I was emotionally peeved at myself and wasn’t following the path of forgiveness. No siree, I was going to resent the hell out of my limitations!
And so I perpetuated this pathetic cycle for a couple more weeks, allowing self-depricating thoughts sabotage my plans, conveniently forgetting all the affirming beliefs that I’ve been nurturing since this journey began.
So now it’s Tuesday of this week and two lovely work colleagues (more than a decade younger than yours truly) invite me to join them for a lunch hour jaunt (that includes hills) on Wednesday. Figuring it was as good a time as any to shrug off the yoke of self-doubt, I accepted their invitation. Jinkies, I was nervous!!!! What if I slowed them down? What if I couldn’t keep up? What if I had to stop and walk? What if….
What a bunch of steamin’ horse SH*T! I can honestly say, I had serious performance anxiety before setting out (I can’t even imagine what olympic athletes go through!!). But it happened. And I did keep up…until half-way…and I did slow them down on the return trip (which they didn’t seem to mind), and I didn’t have to stop and walk (with a lot of silent “you can do it!!” sing-songing in my mind when negotiating the hills). I finished strong and recovered quickly and I’m okay with that.
I didn’t do any happy dances when I crossed the finish line. But I do feel like I’ve overcome a substantially large mental BOULDER that has been plaguing my progress. I couldn’t get over it, I couldn’t get under it, I couldn’t go through it, so I just went around it.
Therefore, have officially picked back up where I left off. And however it rolls-out from here, I will be grateful for the experience, no matter what it brings or where it takes me.
Peace xo
So I have two things to confess: 1. I’ve been super avoiding even thinking of running (I felt the tension all day) and didn’t want to go out tonight at all. And, I was supposed to do a 3K warm-up, 3 hills, then a 3K cool-down. But time and daylight did not permit me to get to the hills in time.
But excuses are not part of my “Because I can…” journey so….
Instead, I ran down the familiar country road, listening to new music and pushing myself beyond anything I’ve experienced so far. Elton John rocked through the ear buds and I kept time with my pace. Man, Elton’s songs are long!! LOL I managed a full 85% for at least 5 minutes and 20 seconds…the longest stretch yet. Then I allowed myself a wee bit of time to bring my heart rate back down then I was at it again with another face paced tune…and repeated a third time (3 hills, right?) It was fantastic.
Considering how I feel like I met “the wall” yesterday, today I pushed through it and I am relieved. Never give up…NEVER give up!!
Peace xo
I think I was mentally saving myself tonight and so I set out at a snail’s pace to do my run. Having a rest day in-between Sunday’s 9K and today’s 5K made a huge difference. The country road was so quiet…the scenery was beautiful, the music was keeping me in time.
It was a good run. I still had some left at the end of the go…I guess slow and steady does win the race after all. Today was the longest distance. Theoretically, the rest of the week will go well…right?!
Peace xo
Thank goodness for fluffy clouds in the sky! If it wasn’t for those shape-shifting formations that I could concentrate on while I was running, who knows what would’ve happened. LOL Is it a bunny? Teapot? Whale?
Now I’m sure that you’re wondering how it could be that I’m running AND looking at the clouds but sometimes a woman has to do what a woman has to do to shift focus away from burning lungs and tired legs. (It doesn’t hurt that I run along a country road either.)
I was okay for the first 6K then “because I can” kicked in. I was tired! I did manage an aggressive sprint to the finish…full boar…all out…emptied the tank. And then I thought I was going to pass out! Stars were whirling and birds were tweeting. It really wasn’t pretty. But I finished.
Tell me, do you sprint at the end of your run? If you do, are you pooped? Is it worth it if you feel yucky for the rest of the day? Hmmmmm
Thus, I begin week 5. Tuesday is 5K straight. It’ll be interesting.
Peace xo
It’s just time…all I need is time…how do I make the time…why am I doing time? LOL
Clearly, time was on my mind tonight. I didn’t get out until 9:15 p.m. which means it’s starting to get dark. It was still extremely balmy out but thankfully, a small breeze gave me breath from time to time.
It’s tough to get out 5 days a week. It’s tough to work the run into soccer schedules, laundry, and grocery shopping. It’s just tough.
But what I value, I make time for. It’s that simple. Without placing value on it, well, it just wouldn’t happen.
So tell me…how do you make time?
Peace xo
What stirs your soul? What lights a fire at the core of your being? If you are living your ideal life, what would that look like? What does it feel like? What temperature is it? What texture is it? What colour is it? What are you passionate about?
These are some of the questions that I pose to myself while out on my jogging adventures. The process of working up a sweat with my pink-laced shoes doesn’t so much light a fire at the core of my being, but it certainly sparks my desire to really know myself better, to be creative in my approach to living in the moment and encourages me to suspend any perceived outcomes but just live the experience. Is that being too provocative?
Tell me…what stirs your soul?
Peace xo
P.S. Did another 3.5K at 5:30 a.m. To quote the P90X dude, “I hate it…but I love it!”
Second day into week 3 and I have 3K, 4K, 3K schedule. It sort of felt like a kilometer sandwich..two standard sized 3K pieces of bread, with a heftier serving size of something filling in the middle. (It’s funny how my imagination can find food in just about any situation!!)
Trusting my well-honed sense of timing (meaning I left my watch at home), I set out to discover new lands and new adventures (went straight instead of turning left). The neighbourhood was quiet tonight with the exception of the occasional passer-by…a mom with her twin boys in a stroller, a couple walking their dog, a remarkably sculpted young man mowing his lawn bare-chested (I turned my head to admire the flower gardens, I promise!!!). People are just quiet at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night. Would I rather being doing something else? I think not! (Well maybe, but what fun what this blog be otherwise!)
What keeps me going is that the people I meet along the way are smiling and waving and I imagine that they’re sending me positive energy, wishing me well, and wondering if they, too, could challenge themselves to get out of their comfort zone. And I image how great it’ll feel when I’m home, showered, and in my jammies for the night. (There has to be a carrot there somewhere, right? See, there’s the food reference again…)
Upon arriving at my final destination, I hop into the car and measure out the distance of the new route that I took. Wouldn’t ya know it, I went 3.5K instead of the prescribed 3. I guess my 3-4-3 sandwich will have slightly different proportions that I initially set out with. And I’m okay with that.
Peace xo
Ever travel down a long road, looking off into the distance seeing the horizon but not what’s beyond it?
I keep to the same 7K route today and decide, this time, to keep my eyes trained on the horizon and not the pavement that’s 2 feet in front of me. The white, painted line along the side of the road leads me forward like a pathway. I can see the horizon and I know that the path continues beyond what I can see with my own naked eye. I know the road continues inspite of its invisibility to me. But not so remarkably, with each step I take, the horizon extends as well. But I know that the road is still there…
When I cross over the 2-way stop intersection, the white shoulder line disappears. Even though my path beacon has disappeared, the road and the horizon move with me one step at a time.
Sound like another analogy set-up? You bet!!! LOL Occasionally, the journey has a clearly defined path for me to take. I never really know what’s in the future but I do know that I need to negotiate life’s road one step, one moment at a time.
Then at a cross-roads, the “path” disappears. Life’s road still continues even though the “path” may have temporarily disappeared. I still know that I have to keep moving, though. I can either reverse my direction and return to the path or I can move forward and see where the road takes me, even without the marker. By retreating, I stay comfortable with my decisions, and cover familiar territory. By moving forward, I can “step out” into the unknown, trusting my sense of direction and heeding the desire for adventure and new vistas. Either decision is okay. But I have to keep moving.
As you may well imagine, I kept moving forward, without the white shoulder line to beacon me. And as started the loop back on the “other” side of the road, wouldn’t you know it, I came to that same cross-roads and before me was the white line to take me back home. 🙂
The white line isn’t perfectly straight, by the way. At places, it looks as though it’s been painted with a very sloppy hand. And some joyrider ran their wheels through the fresh paint, creating swoosh-patterned tire tracks as decoration along the road. Life is like that, too; sometimes sloppy and sometimes spattered with decoration. 🙂
In the last kilometre of the home stretch, Jason Mraz’s “I Won’t Give Up” croons through my earbuds. What fantastically inspiring lyrics…
“I don’t wanna be someone who walks away so easily
I’m here to stay and make the difference that i can make
Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use the tools and gifts
We got yeah we got a lot at stake
And in the end, you’re still my friend at least we did intend
For us to work we didn’t break, we didn’t burn
We had to learn, how to bend without the world caving in
I had to learn what i got, and what i’m not
And who i am….God knows we’re worth it”
This path today didn’t break and didn’t burn, but I did have to bend so as to cover new ground and develop new insight into the mystery of what makes Laurie tick…to learn what I got, and what I’m not and who I am…because God knows I’m worth it. 🙂
Peace xo
Read more: JASON MRAZ – I WON’T GIVE UP LYRICS http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-wonat-give-up-lyrics-jason-mraz.html#ixzz1ykku6M3u
Copied from MetroLyrics.com
What I’ve reaffirmed in today’s run is that sometimes a person just has to jump through all the hoops if they want to have a positive outcome. Today, I decided that I’d skip the pre-jog stretch. Today, I decided to eat my supper then head out for the run before the food was digested. Today, I decided to not drink enough water despite the warm weather. Today…I learned the hard way!!
On the bright side, I know that my body is much more capable of going the distance even when my mind is sweet-talking my conscious self to just “take it easy”. Nope, it wasn’t all rolling hills and soft fuzzy kittens and chocolate-dipped strawberries. Today, was HARD WORK!
I thought the shortcuts would get me out the gate and home quickly enough. Everyone knows that certain shortcuts really do save time and effort…like using Real Lemon Juice from a bottle mixed with water and sugar to make lemonade instead of squeezing the lemons fresh…of using ctrl+c on the keyboard to copy text or objects instead of using the edit menu. But this gal knows that shortcutting on healthy lifestyle choices doesn’t make anything “short”..it just “cuts”.
3+.9 km done (had to make up the .9 from earlier this week, remember?) and a few tough lessons and I’m at the end of week two!!
7K with 10:1 intervals tomorrow. The weather forecast isn’t promising…oh well…I’ve always wanted to run in the rain!
Another early start this morning. The battery on my cell phone/radio ran out of juice during the night so I am on my own with my thoughts again, this time at 5:30 a.m. The air is heavy with moisture and the birds are are chirping their morning salute. 4K to do this morning…but which way to go?
Not wanting to duplicate yesterday’s miscalculation of distance, I head northward in the usual direction. It’s so quiet, except, of course, for the duet of shoes hitting the pavement and my rhythm of breathing. It feels good this morning. Yay!
Just as soon as I leave the neighbourhood and am running along the main road, I can see that the morning fog still lingers over the low marsh areas. How beautifully mysterious looking! Everything looks so lush and vibrant green. And among the thick growth along the road are patches of wild daisies…sprinkled here and there. Rarely do I see one solitary daisy. Instead they grow in small clusters. Their stems are hardy; their petals simple and delicate. I do so very much love daisies.
As I continue along my route, I am aware of all the daisies that are standing at attention to greet me along my travels. The daisies are peppering my view with beauty so as to distract me from my task. The daisies are cheering me on. With the nudge of a gentle breeze, they sway in the direction of my turnaround point just down the road as though shepherding me with encouragement.
The warm glow of the sun is just rising above the trees as I’m on the home stretch. Like a grandstand of supportive spectators, I acknowledge the largest group of daisies the seems to go on and on. Their company on this fine morning, has made all the difference.
The daisies are so much like my amazing family and friends. Sometimes they stand alone along the journey. Sometimes they gather into small groups to share an experience with me. Sometimes they swarm together in large numbers to lift me higher than I dare to go on my own.
I am most profoundly grateful for my daisies…you know who you are!
Friday is a rest day. Back to my daisies on Saturday. 🙂
Because I can 