Overcast and cool… perfect day for running. Another day on the trails. We tried a different route today… longer, tougher, very awesome and beautiful.
I started my run behind Kasey and 20 seconds into it my phone rang (need my phone as I use the Running Ap on it.) No I did not answer it but I had to stop to reset my Ap as to not lose my data. This put me a bit behind. So I ran hard to catch up with him. Keeping up with Kasey is hard enough, catching up with him is tough. I caught up after a while.
Of course he sped up as to remain undefeated… in case you never noticed, Kasey doesn’t like finishing second… as a matter of fact he doesn’t even like tying for first. No matter, I kept running hard. At one point I encountered a couple of mountain bikers, the first one I was able to pull over and still keep running. The second one, I met as he was coming down a steep hill covered in large rocks and boulders. I figured it would be smart to completely pull over and let him through as I do not really enjoy being run over. Very inconvenient. Stopping is always a huge runner’s mistake. To be honest, I have to admit that pulling over and taking a break felt great at the time. But soon I hard to restart, and of course it was immediately going up a good size hill… yeah. The legs would NOT cooperate… jello…. tired…. refusing to move. It was very hard to start again. But I kept repeating Dalton’s famous words of wisdom “Pain don’t hurt”. It was a tough run. As an experiment I thought I would try stopping again to see if the same thing would happen. Bingo... it did. Amazing. But I did not stop as long and this time it was a bit easier to restart again. Now slowing down during a difficult part of the course did not produce those results. Even while going up the hill from hell (I could swear I saw Satan sitting on the side lines laughing while I was climbing that one).
It was a tough totally awesome 40 some minutes run. Amazing how much harder running trails is then just running on the road. I was drained and exhausted and very happy to have pushed myself hard. There is a mental component to training along with the obvious physical benefits. Finishing something, reaching a goal, pushing yourself hard is a mental victory as well. And the endorphin rush is so much better than ANY drugs can ever give you.
Learning point: when you start something it is much easier to keep going even if you have to slow down at some point then to completely stop. How many of you have at one point started on a “healthier lifestyle” (better nutrition, exercise) and came across a bump in the road (party, vacation) where you had to stop for a while? How hard was it to re-start again? And the longer we waited the harder it was, wasn’t it? This goes for any area in your life but even more so in training. Things happen at some point that forces you to stop or slow down. Always choose the slowing down options if you can. And no matter how hard it is….. Always start again.
NEVER give up!!!!
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