Push It. Push It Good.

A neat quote from The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer by David A. Whitsett:

"One of the things that has become clear to us through working with people training for the marathon is that in order to maintain a positive attitude about training and running, it is necessary to develop a positive attitude about life in general."

So true. I've seen the change in me since I started running. I may not totally be there yet, but I'm working on it.

Yesterday morning, I met up with the training group. I told my coach up front that my goal for the day was to finish 3.1 miles in under 30 minutes. Then, I ran the fastest, hardest 3.1 miles of my life for a sub 30-minute 5K finally!

That's been a goal of mine for a while. I think yesterday I learned what it meant to push myself. In training runs, in actual races, when the discomfort starts, I tend to slow down or (gasp!) take a walk break. Having no atheltic background, I have never been pushed to my limits. I never knew about pushing through pain. (Except for a brief foray into natural childbirth with baby #3 that lasted 23 hours. Then I got the epidural. See what I mean?)

I heard about a shirt spotted at the Boston Marathon that said "Pain is just weakness leaving the body." Whoa. So yesterday, I was uncomfortable, but I didn't stop or even slow down. I ran as hard as I could--- breathless, legs burning----and at the end, when I was at the 29:50-ish mark, when I didn't think I had anything left, I dug deeper and ran harder to just make it with a final time of 29:59. So, it was close, but I met my goal.

Thanks to my new Garmin Forerunner 205, every training run can feel like a race! (Thanks, Honey!) It has a GPS that tells me how far I've gone, how fast I'm running, and how long I've run. I can run pretend races anytime I want.

Happy New Year!