I'm on the right track baby, I was born to be brave

I was surly about going this morning, since things are starting to hurt from not taking any rest days. But then this lovely Lady Gaga song came on. I know, I must be the last person on the planet to hear it, but I really liked it! I listened to it three times just for the line that is the title of the post.

Anyways, I did 3.5 miles. Time was 41:56, 11:59/mile. I did 2.5R/1W intervals which are working out quite well, it would seem.

Sandy's post from yesterday, in addition to being just awesome, reminded me of the hard time I had when I was trying to transition from just treadmill running to doing some running outside (I wanted to run a half marathon, I had already walked one). It was seriously difficult, and I wrote this post about it at the time. I'll copy the post here:

I was reading this blog, by this penguin guy, and this line really struck me: “I miss the regular, consistent glimpse into the best of who I am that I get when I’m running.” And I thought about this morning, when I had a very small victory. Just running three miles, doing the intervals I planned….. outside. Outside has been a big challenge for me with running. For multiple reasons, most of which are too boring to get into. But this morning, I woke up and knew I had planned this run, and I really didn’t want to go.

“Running in my neighborhood is a bad idea…. there might be people out there. They will probably be on their porches drinking coffee. They will see me. They will laugh, or be disgusted. They might throw things at me or yell at me. I’ll look stupid, I’ll feel stupid and since this is my own neighborhood everyone will know who I am and where I live.”

This is just sample of the terrible things that go through my head when I am attempting to push the limits of what I think I can do. Irrational, yes. But probably not unusual. I think lots of people have those voices. And I think lots of people listen. I listen sometimes.

And when I read that line on John Bingham’s blog, I thought about this morning. And I thought that the fact that I have these voices, these challenges, these insecurities, that part of my journey is to have to struggle so hard against my own mind. And I thought that the fact that I hear these things in my head, and I got up anyway, and I ran anyway, and I did exactly what I had planned to do, that I decided to defy those voices and TRY, is one of those glimpses into the best of who I am. And it is definitely one of the things that keeps me going.