Running on Monday nights has become a regular thing for my schedule lately, but last night when my husband came home from his own hill cycling workout, I just wasn't feeling it. Luckily he's never been one to let me slide by without doing what I've promised I would and he forced me out the door. Stepping out the door, my plan was to run for 20 minutes and be back to watch our dvr'd episode of Smash (our guilty pleasure show). However, once I got out there, I felt myself being drawn to keep going forward. So instead of my usual propensity for cutting the run short because I wasn't feeling it, I was encouraging myself to go just that much further. This is sooo not like me, but I so desperately want this race to go smoothly and to walk away from my first triathlon wanting to do another one. I ran 2.34 (or so) miles in 30 minutes for a 12:39 pace. While it pleases me to see pace numbers other than 14 or 15, I can't help but feel like I am missing out on my potential to do better. I want to see 11's and 10's and I know I need to do some work to get there.
My swim today was good as well. I am a complete airhead in the water though. I am never ever able to keep count of how much I am swimming. I am completely distracted by other swimmers and things going on outside of the pool. I am extremely self-conscious about myself in all things athletic, but there is something about the people swimming on either side of me that brings out that horrible voice of self-doubt in my head. It isn't even about my body image since that is under the water. I'm sizing up their stroke, their speed and how effortless they look in comparison to what I think I look like. It gets inside my head and gets all twisted up until I'm convinced that I look like a cat in water and that I have no business swimming in this pool. The thing I have no business doing is letting all of this garbage in my head. Triathlons need to include emotional training as well.
This reminds me of this awesome comic from The Oatmeal:
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