So I had my first track workout this morning (Friday when I started writing this). Run fast, recover, run fast, recover, pretty much for almost an hour. I ran a quarter of a mile in 2:01 and thought to myself, whoa, that's 8:04 for a mile, I've never ran a mile that fast!! Then I really put my heart into the third one and I was going to run a sub-2 no matter what... I ran a 1:51. That's a 7:24 mile!! Granted, I can't keep it up for a mile, but that's how it all starts!! A year of this and I WILL be running multiple miles that fast!! But this morning I thought of myself as a 7:XX runner. I feel like I'm coming into my own as an athlete and starting to have faith in my athletic abilities.
And I realized something. All I have to do is show up. That's it. Show up to training for a year and I'll be hitting seven minute miles. I don't even have to do anything, just show up. It's gotten to the point that I'm getting as addicted to the SBR as I was to the group classes. Even when I'm running and it's hard and it's long I know that rush of endorphins is just minutes away and feels so good when it hits. In every training session there's ebbs and flows of good and sucky feelings, and you ride out the sucky feelings because you know the good ones are coming. It feels almost like cheating because I enjoy training so much, getting built up to do an IM from it seems kinds of unfair, like I'm not even working for it. Just like losing weight, I had so much fun doing it that it wasn't really an "accomplishment" ... there was nothing hard about it! There's nothing hard about finishing an Ironman, just tons of fun training! And this is from someone who almost quit after her first bike ride to go back to Zumba. And it's really just one step, one stroke, one pedal, just the amount of times varies. So I view the whole deal as having my cake and eating too. Like I'm being rewarded for having fun. Really, is there anything better?
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