Running thru Self-doubt

I heard this this morning and I laughed and nodded my head at the same exact time. Truth.

“Your inner critic is a plastic surgeon. He’s opened a private practice inside of your head.”

And suddenly it all made sense.  That naggy little voice that tells me my thighs are too big or my stomach looks fat from that angle. That’s a freaking plastic surgeon living inside of me.  Makes sense really. All the I am not good enoughs and the I need to lose a little more weight, etc., that’s all coming from my inner plastic surgeon.  Totally epic.  I had to shut that voice up a few times this weekend. That voice that tried to make me feel like a failure for being hungry and eating.  Okay maybe eating too much crap that probably wasn’t necessary.  Whatever.  I shut that bitchy nag right up because this weekend I decided that I WAS good enough after all.  But I’m sure it’s just a passing thought really.

Saturday morning I got up and went to my mom’s house where we first made a stop at my Grandpa’s nursing home room.  I haven’t talked about this yet, but my grandpa, my mom’s dad who she is very close to is dying.  He recently got moved into an assisted living facility to be taken care of, and now they have called in hospice.  He has cancer. Terminal, spreading cancer.  Anywhere from 2-6 weeks they think.  It’s not a fun process at all. His mind is still there.  He is still a sweet little old man. His body is just severely failing him. An entire lifetime of smoking cigars.  Anyhow, we stopped by and visited for a while.

Then we went to Gym 1. Old gym. They were having an open house so we thought we’d just check it out. It was yucky.  You could plainly see they were catering to body builders.  It felt yucky and we only stayed like 20 minutes tops and then we left to go sign up at Gym 2. Gym 2 is MUCH smaller than I had even realized on first assessment.  Ugh.  But it does have classes. Even if I was paying $27.00 for the sheer availability to classes it’d be worth it. Oh and the pool and rock wall and spin bikes.  I ran 2 miles on the treadmill to try it out. Fancy new treadmills with TV’s built in and all that entertainment at your fingertips. Literally.  I liked the treadmill. Then I did a little bit of lifting just to assess the situation.  It wasn’t that good. But I am notorious for not loving change and taking a while to warm up to stuff.

I think once I take classes and log more time there things will be better.  Eventually. We will see how it all plays out.  After we worked out we got some food and went back to my Grandpa’s again to take him food and hang out a little bit more.  Then I went home and ended up being bored out of my mind.  It’s been a long time since Chris had to work a weekend and I had forgotten how easy it is to get bored all by yourself.  I guess when you have a short attention span that is.

Yesterday morning I did not really want to get up to run. But I attribute this to the overwhelming reality that I am not a morning person and hate waking up.  I don’t care what I’m doing I am never going to love waking up early and it’s even more vicious when the purpose of it is to physically exhaust myself.  It’s a real mind fuck for me to make myself do it.  I have to really want it, which apparently most of the time I do.  (except last weekend)

The weather was holding out nicely. It was a little cold but not bad. It seemed a little rainy but not bad.  I had to go by myself because Chris was working so that is always a real challenge as well. To want something bad enough to do it yourself.  But I knew I needed to do it because I felt like such a failure when I previously bailed so I just had to do it.

By the time I actually get up and get driving and wake up I start to feel better.  I felt pretty good honestly by the time I drove the hour to the race. It wasn’t raining and it was decent enough out that I didn’t think I needed a long sleeve shirt to run (thought I’d get hot right away) and instead just opted for a t-shirt.  Normally I only wear tank tops. I sweat a lot. But a T-shirt was right on track for the day.  The event itself was pretty nice. They did a good job with pre-run entertainment and the run sway was nice.  I had no complaints.

They had a 3 mile, a 7 mile and a 10 mile run.  The main reason I didn’t run the 10 mile was because it was $10 more on top of an already expensive race and I figured 7 miles was fine. It wasn’t that I couldn’t or didn’t think about doing the 10 mile one. I did. But for $10 it wasn’t worth it.   All 3 distances started out together at the same time.  They had a cut off where the 3 mile ran one way, back to the start, and the 7 & 10 mile ran another way.  So for another longer period of time the 7 & 10 ran together before approaching another cut off where the 7 milers turned.  I had a moment where I was like I could just keep running and do the 10 mile.  But I passed.

Honestly I felt pretty good most of the race. I started running and just got into a groove.  This is the big difference between treadmill and outdoor running.  I have a hard time judging my pace running outside, which is kind of nice. When I am on the treadmill depending on length of run and my exhaustion level I run between 5.8 and 6.2 miles per hour.  Lately it’s been closer to 5.8 or 5.9 with spurts of faster.  Some days this feels REALLY hard. Some days I feel like I am running and dying at this speed.  Let’s just say the boredom of treadmill running is felt.  When I run outside I feel like I am running at a snail’s pace and yet I look down at my Garmin and I am definitely running at least my normal pace.  Funny how that same 6 miles per hour pace can feel hellish and fast on a treadmill whereas outside it feels so slow. I swear I am not running fast at all.

This reality hit me hard yesterday.  It was an out and back course meaning we ran certain distance and then turned around and ran back the same course.  This allows you to see people on your return.  When I started out I felt like I was running so slow.  Like my feet were barely moving. And yet I felt comfortable. I felt good. I was keeping a 10 minute mile pace, even though my brain was certain I wasn’t.  As is the natural progression of things, the people who wanted to run faster passed me and I assumed there were some people behind me. It’s not like I really turn around and check. I’m running my own race, my own pace. 

At some point around mile 1 or 1.5 I honestly felt all alone on the course.  I could see some people ahead of me in the distance but other than that, I never heard footsteps of people coming up behind me and I had a moment where I was like, oh fuck, I am the last person. I am the only one running this distance.  All the faster runners are ahead of me and everyone else who would run at a slower speed than me only did the 3 miler and I am all alone on this course.  Funny how our brain thinks such things.  How we can trick ourselves into believing anything. Or perhaps fearing.  But what was I going to do about it anyway?  I couldn’t make my body go faster. Maybe for a split second but I knew I had a long while to run still. Oh well, just run my pace. Run my course.

And I was having a good time.  I really was.  I was in fact having an awesome time.  I kept saying to myself, this is it, right here, why I do this. This freedom and happiness from running. This high. This feeling of being outside and letting everything else go. This is such pure joy for me.  I honestly remember thinking this over and over. It was crazy. And I ran.  I passed up water station after water station because honestly I am a girl who can run for an hour and not eat or drink and I don’t want to disturb my flow.  I ran every step, up hills, down hills, all around. At my comfortable normal pace according to my watch even if my body felt like I was going 2 miles an hour.  

At about mile 4.5 I reached the turnaround for the 7 mile group. This was the first time I got to turn around and see that there were actually people behind me.  Until this moment I was lost in my world (headphones in) assuming I was somewhere in the back of the pack. This is lack of confidence I guess. This was not thinking my speed was anything fast.  I don’t know. But as I started running back and actually facing the oncoming runners I realized I was not alone. I realized there were people behind me.  A lot of people. Hmm.  Not only did I have the rest of the 7 mile group but I had the people running at a slower pace doing the 10 mile run.  As I kept running I saw tons of people; running-walking behind me.  This has nothing to do with vanity on my part. It has to do with doubting my own self.  I was genuinely shocked to see so many people.  By no stretch of the imagination do I consider a 6 mile per hour pace all that fast. It’s okay. It’s what I tend to run.  It’s my present ability level.  But I’m not winning races at this speed. I don’t have a ton of self-confidence.

I kept my pace and by the end I started to get tired.  I mean, as I approached about 6.5 miles I was like, yeah I would kind of like to be done with this.  It’s so mental because if I was running a half, while I would feel like I want to be done, I probably wouldn’t allow myself to even think about it because I’m not close to done at that point. But as I saw the finish line and realized I was moments away from 7 miles I felt relief.  I crossed the line at 1 hour 9 minutes 35 seconds officially.  This was happiness to me.  This was a smidge less than 10 minute miles, which honestly is great for me to keep for 7 miles straight.  At the gym I tend to average a smidge OVER 10 minute miles. It’s the freedom of running outside. It allows me to speed up at moments and slow down when I need to too recover.  Running outside truly is amazing.

Here’s the lovely shocking part.  Turns out I finished the race 53 out of 196.  Not that it matters all that much.  I was the 32^nd girl to cross the line.  Even at my 10 minute mile pace. Mostly any of this excites me because I swear for a solid 2-3 miles I thought I was the last person or at least close to back of the pack. So it was lovely to see that I was in the top 25% or thereabouts.  Running has never been about placement for me. I don’t run to win or compete or be fast and I ultimately don’t care what position I am in. Some races, some days I’m in the top, sometimes I am close to the last person. None of it matters.  It was just nice to see that I shouldn’t doubt myself as much as I do.  Keeping a sub 10 minute mile pace for 7 miles is good enough.  And I didn’t stop for a single second on that 7 mile/70 minute run.  Gearing my body back up to running conditions.

I was however, extremely exhausted last night.  Like over the top exhaustion. It happens. I don’t presently have any races this weekend but then the following weekend April 4 is a half marathon.  Excited and nervous at the same time. It’s been a long time, too long since I’ve ran that distance. But I feel like if I can fairly comfortably run 7 miles without stopping that I’m well on my way to running 13.1.  I’m sure I can manage.  In the end I felt great about my run yesterday and it restored my faith in myself and in my ability to run. 

Tonight I hit up the gym. I want to run 3.1 miles and then do some upper body work.  And that is about all she wrote for the day.