Monday, December 07, 2009

I have to do it for me.

I started the Couch to 5k running training program a while back (September 12th) with a goal of finishing the program and running my first 5k race in the spring. (Hey Rich! This isn’t your running blog, wrong place! Bear with me. I’m getting to it OK?) This week I’m on the last week of the program. I had to redo a week and might have done two weeks twice. I’m not sure now. I just know that I’m a run away from completing the plan. I should add that I’m in North Dakota and today instead of eating lunch I ran, my thinking being that one pm it was as warm as it was going to get all day. It was 4° Fahrenheit (–15 C) when I went on my run today and there was a slight wind out of the north. When I finished my run, 40 minutes with the five minute cool down, it was 2°F (-16 C). It was cooling off already.

Why would ANYBODY run in those conditions? Two reasons really. 1) They’re a runner. I saw two other runners out on my run today and B) They have a goal set and they want to make it and will do whatever it takes to make that goal. I’m not always like this, but there are times when I set a goal and for some reason that particular goal sets hooks in my skin and drags me along.

Today, running in the arctic air I realized I was in pursuit of another of those goals of mine. I was so close to being done with the Couch to 5k program when I came up here to North Dakota and winter hit hard but there was no way I could quit. The hotel has no treadmill, and I hate those anyway. I didn’t want to join a gym when I’m only out here a week or so. That left only two options. Don’t run and quitting now would NOT be good. It’d be too hard to start up again. Or option 2, put on a hat and get out there and put one foot in front of the other.

The importance of goals, even goals that look hard but doable, I take that back, ESPECIALLY goals that look really hard but doable are what make things interesting out there. Those victories are the great ones. Setting a goal that you can’t help but meet, that’s not a victory. That doesn’t make a difference at all. It’s a “gimme” and that’s just a waste of time. But setting those goals that you’re pretty sure you’ll be able to do but it won’t be easy. I think those are the most fun to make and meet.

Oh, and lest you think I meet all my goals. Nope. I haven’t. I don’t brag about the others much. Who would? But just because I don’t meet a goal doesn’t mean I stop. The weeks that I had to do over again on the running program weren’t weeks I was proud of. For some reason I had off weeks. I wasn’t running as good as I should have and I knew if I’d progressed it would have gotten worse and I’d have quit. So, I redid the week. I held myself back… I didn’t socially promote myself so I’d feel good about myself. I knew I didn’t have the base that I needed so I worked until I got it, even though it turned what was supposed to be a 9 week program into a 12.5 Week program doesn’t make it a real victory does it? Yes. It does because my goal was to finish. Not to finish in 9 weeks. So. Day after tomorrow, barring a blizzard I will be tying on my running shoes and pulling on my balaclava for the last run of the Couch to 5k program.

PS: Today’s run was 6.78k (4.2 Miles) I like metric for distance since it makes it look like I’ve run further lol.

PPS: To those of you who run already and laugh at my paltry accomplishment. Pththththt

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