Tag Archives: Pacing

Three Things

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Happy Wednesday, Wide World of Fancy Oatmeal Reading!

I hope that this hump day finds you healthy, wealthy, and wise.  It finds me Hushed, Rushed, and Crushed.

Hushed: I am far less vocal at night due to my evening runs and reading marathons.  I’ve finished two night runs this week, which has allowed me to finish Insurgent and begin The Fault in Our Stars.

I’ve only really read the first two chapters of John Green’s novel about a young girl who has terminal cancer, but I can tell you that I already am falling in love with the voice that he utilizes to tell this tale.  With the level of commitment that I’m already showing signs of in the first 38 pages, I anticipate that I’ll be ready to share a review with ya’ll this week.

 

Rushed: It’s sort of funny, that Einstein “Theory of Relativity” thing; you know when everything seems to be based on your own perception, and time can either seem to go into slow motion

or zip past you like the Roadrunner?

Yea, well I must have accidentally leaned against the lever to switch things over into Warp Speed because I felt like I was having a panic attack this morning, thinking about all of the “loose ends” that Dear Hubby and I still have to attend to before we leave the island.

For example:

  • Sell our car
  • Pack the remainder of our schtuff
  • Change our mailing address with the Post Office and other various junk mail-sending entities
  • Clean out our classrooms
  • Something important that I am totally forgetting

Crushed:  As in my morning run today.  It was the first time all week where I felt like I didn’t need to keep pushing myself in order to reach my mileage goal.  It could have been due to the fact that I was fully rested, properly fueled, and focused on the idea of maintaining an even pace.

Overall I’m feeling really good about my runs this month,

and my pacing has been improving.  So this allows me to be able to focus on the “Rushed” and “Hushed” parts of my life.

Be Kind to Yourself

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Happy Thursday, Fancy Oatmeal-athons.  You’ll be glad to know that this will be a Fifty Shades of Grey - free blog post.  I haven’t quite finished the third book, and am not sure yet if I’m going to do a complete review of the sequential novels.  This is mostly due to the fact that the plot develops between Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele that give away too much for those who haven’t read/finished reading the first book.  I don’t want to be a spoiler and let you know that Christian leaves her and marries me, so you’re welcome.

Anyways, this post will be a comforting return to normal topics of discussion: my running and delusions.

This morning, I had four miles on my calendar, so I loaded up the ol’ iPod Nano and took off.  I was going to own this run.

And that’s just what I did…my legs felt great for the first time since Sunday’s run.

I have been dealing with a little more leg discomfort than usual, and I’m not really sure what the culprit is.  I’ve been doing a few more sets of leg exercises each week, but that only helped make my long run on Saturday fly by faster.  I’ve been icing, using compression sleeves, and stretching like a Romanian gymnast.  So what the H is going on????

All of my runs this week have been more synchronized, pacing-wise and this pleases me.  But this bloody case of leg lethargy is raining on my parade.  Today, I decided to try and slow my roll a little bit and not worry so much about beating a 7’50 average pace.  Calm down, Spaz Legs!

At first, I thought this was a step backwards; I had regressed in my conditioning.  The truth is it’s probably exactly what my body needed in order to STAY in good condition.  Sometimes, it’s ok to be nice to yourself and listen to your body.

Why do people, myself included, get so down on themselves?

Top Three Reasons Why I am Hard on Myself:

3.  I replay a scenario over in my mind and think of what I SHOULD have said

2. I didn’t workout when I was supposed to/didn’t run as far as I was scheduled

1.  I didn’t say something when I think I should have

What I think that it all boils down to is not living up to my own expectations.  It’s true that we often set standards for ourselves that can get a little too lofty, or are incrementally too far spaced from the previous step that we have taken in our progress towards an end.  We are our own worst enemy and more often than not, set ourselves up for failure, and then berate our inability to perform.

Mentally, I have been chastising myself for running an average of five seconds slower per mile…that’s all, five seconds.  Well guess what happens to people who push themselves too fast, too hard!

So the next time that I start to go all Chris Brown on myself, I’m going to remember that we all need a break, it doesn’t make me a loser (there are enough other reasons like falling in love with fictional billionaires), and in the end it will help me to achieve my goals faster.  And every once and awhile, it’s ok to be kind to the body that has shown up for me despite the verbal lashing that I give it.