Selfishness, Be Gone!

Alright, so this past Sunday was an awful reminder of some of my toughest days as a runner...

It began with an unwanted alarm going off at 4:45am. It indicated that I was about to dislike the next 4 hours. Mollie and I woke up, got ready and headed to the park in VB. We got out on the trail and running with our supplies around 6:30am. That's when the negativity really started to kick in.

Racing through my mind were tons of crappy thoughts:

This water bottle in my hand is heavier than I'd like.

My legs feel like I raced a half yesterday.

The air smells and tastes like campfire smoke.

I rushed the start and didn't get to stretch, so my calves feel "tight as a banjo".

I'm pretty sure a 2 mile warm up won't help break me in properly before this workout begins.

My revised marathon pace for this workout will be wrong and hard to run since I'm only on my 2nd week back in training.

10 miles easy sounds craptastic this morning, not to mention the workout I'm beginning calls for 16 miles (w/ 10 at race pace).

Mosquitoes are still biting me even while I'm running.

My first warm up mile split was atrocious.

Where did all this land me?

For starters, I began with an 8:40ish first warm up mile- ugh. Next, with a bitchy attitude from hell that not even a mother could love. Also included, bickering between myself and my running partner- the one person that could pull me out of this chasm of negativity that smells of hot trash. Finally, it helped me out 0% in my workout.

I don't know exactly why I was in that funk that morning. There were a thousand reasons I could propose, but they all seem negative just thinking them up, so there's no benefit to spitting them out. Ultimately, that negativity was a result of me being selfish and wanting to do everything on my terms. I sometimes find myself getting irritated at the workout plan, as if I didn't choose to do it myself- foolishness.

After that workout Sunday morning, which I did get through without total disaster, I realized I need to maintain a different take going into a run. The approach to the workout should not be "me, me, what if, but I need, etc.". Instead it should be "I'm prepared, what can I do for my partner, another day closer to our goal". We're human, not perfect, but I need to drop the selfishness- it's a crippler.