Sometimes I hate really running

I know, it's hard to believe. I talk about running, I think about running, I look online all the time trying to figure out races I want to do. But sometimes I really hate it.

Yesterday it was really nice outside compared to what it's been like. I mean it was February 15th and 50 degrees. All the snow is gone off our front lawn. So I knew I was going to go running yesterday. I decided to go a different way this week. To go towards Payson; to end at Petittenet. It's kind of downhill but not totally. There are hills here and there so it was a good way to start doing more uphills.

So I took off and was feeling great; the first mile. Around mile 1.5 I started feeling it...that dreaded "why in the heck am I doing this" feeling. Where I start trying to justify to myself why I could stop running; why I could quit right now and be OK. I start thinking about how much I want to stop. How tired I am. How far I have to go still and how my body just wants to quit. It's a really terrible part of running. I know if I push through I'll be happy I finished but at that time it's so hard not to quit.

What usually happens to make me keep going? A song comes on the radio that I either love or has a perfect running beat. Or I realize I've gone 10 minutes further while I was trying to talk myself out of running. :-) I've been running long enough I can usually talk myself out of it. In the beginning it was harder to ignore that voice. I stopped more than I wanted to. Not to say I don't stop now. I just like to be more in charge of when that happens. Yesterday I stopped running for a block but it was after the 3 mile mark and I haven't done that much uphill in a very, very long time. So I knew if i took a block off I'd feel go enough to go the rest of the way plus some maybe. I did it on my time...not that stupid little "you can't do this" voice in my head's time.

I'm trying to do more uphills. This last week during CrossFit when we've had running as part of the workout they've started adding an incline to the running. So where it would usually be "Run 800m" it's now "Run 800m at a 4% incline". I really try hard not to run uphill and boy could I tell! That first day I thought I was going to die!! Clark, Jessica's husband, looked over at me. He said "You live in Elk Ridge. You should be OK with hills." I told him I run downhill not up. He told Jessica later he thought I was a runner and that the incline wouldn't bother me. She told him I usually run downhill, he said that I'd told him that. When Jessica told me that I started thinking "I really need to do some uphills." I mean they're everywhere here. It would make finding routes a lot easier if I could handle hills a little better. Plus the extra cardio help isn't a bad thing either.

So that's why I picked a route with hills. I may try to do that one again some time this week if I can. Maybe tomorrow. But I'm not sure the weather is going to work out. I think it's supposed to rain tomorrow and then the snow is supposed to be back Saturday. Oh, I also ran in Provo on Thursday. I had a Young Woman activity at 7pm so I worked a little late and then ran 3 miles before the activity. It was nice to run on a little more level ground. The stop lights weren't the greatest though. I hated stopping for all of them. Give me open country roads any day!

 So...the moral to the story..."Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming." Ignore that voice in your head that's telling you to stop. Telling you you can't do it. Telling you it's not that big a deal if you quit. Ignore it. Because it's wrong.