A Walk of Shame and an Attempted Rescue Van Pick-Up

Those of you keeping score at home may have noticed the little mile counter to the left tick past 300 this week.

(Or not. It might be like the odometer when you're at 299,990 and getting all excited and then you have a few crazy commutes and suddenly you look down and it's all 300,011 and you're all, oh man! Now I have to wait another 100,000 klicks.)

You're probably all anxious, nay, waiting with bated breath, for a PM training update.

(Or not. Perchance you care not one iota that I'm slowly turning into one of those annoying people who talk blithely about "my run" and say things like, "the first few miles weren't great, but after that I felt awesome!" or "I need to eat clean tonight and go to bed early - I've got my long run tomorrow.")

Nonetheless the quizzical and disbelieving looks and "really? a half marathon?"s that I get when I tell people about my summer plans suggests that some find this latest pursuit difficult to reconcile with my usual tendencies towards quieter activities, so perhaps a bit of a defense is in order.

Running, like most things I suspect, is about 90% attitude and 10% physical ability. But the 10% is a pretty important part.

My nemesis is my brain. It is constantly trying to persuade me that I'm too tired, too sore, too sick, too busy, too whatever to get on the treadmill. Once there, it goes into overdrive trying to get me off. Heck, it even pulls out the ol' vertigo if I'm watching TV and the camera gets a little too shaky.

(If The Boy is playing Mario Kart Wii, I have to focus on a knothole on the wall. His careening around the race course has made me trip numerous times.)

As with pretty much everything that's hard, the only way past the brain is to simply override it. I have to tell myself that I'm running 6 miles today and that's it. No rewards for completion, no punishments for failure - carrots and sticks only open up a conversation.

For the whole thing to work, it needs to be a "do or not do" situation, where "not do" only becomes an option if there's vomiting involved.

Case in point: two weekends ago, I got a bit of a late start and headed out for my long run as the sun was reaching its zenith. Combine poor clothing choices, poor sleeping habits, and a definitely poor attitude towards hydration that morning and at four miles in, I was done.

Well, my legs were done. And my brain, despite giving the ol' "once more until the breach, my friends" speech from Henry V, was simply powerless to convince them otherwise.

And thus began the long, hot, sweaty, discouraged plod home.

When you've hit a low like that, all kinds of badness happens to your brain. You start to wonder if you'll ever be capable of doing it. You start to think about dropping out. You dread the next time out, knowing it won't just be hard (which is usual) but that it will be scary.

Which is where that whole other 90% comes in. I decided that instead of waiting until the next scheduled long run to try again and giving myself way too much time to talk myself out of the whole kit and kaboodle altogether, I was going to get right back on that horse.

So the next day, clad in more breathable attire, heading out with a rested and hydrated body at a much cooler temperature, I gave it another try. Except it wasn't so much a "try" as it was a "come back with your shield or on it."

Running past the point where I'd bailed the day before was tough. All the doubts returned, all those voices saying "you know, if you keep going, the walk home is just going to be that much longer" got louder. But I reminded myself that running is pretty much just one foot in front of the other until you get to the finish line, so I concentrated on the one foot.

About two miles from home, I saw a hood I recognized and realized my car was coming toward me. It stopped right beside me, and The Husband leaned over and asked, "you okay? Need a ride?"

(Sweet boy. He forgets that he runs a bazillion times faster than I do, and that my "slow and steady" mantra depends on the former for the latter.)

"Nope," I said. "I'm fine. I'll keep going and I'll be home soon."

And I was.