Round 2

It's raining. I can't do it by myself. I should have started 2 months ago, it's too late now. I need to clean the bathrooms. I just ate dinner. It's getting dark. I can't find my pants. I don't want to carry my keys. I'll have to start all over.

That last one. That last reason is the one real reason I knew I didn't want to run today. All of those other things were reasons my brain came up with to try and talk me out of it in a "it's not your fault" kind of way. I have a lot of will power, just not the kind that gets me to do things. My will power is great at talking me out of stuff.

So here I am, a mere what, 6 months later? Six months ago I ran my first 5k race. Six months ago I was on top of the world. Six months ago I told myself I'd keep running. Six months ago I quit.

It really is depressing. It's amazing to me how many excuses I can come up with. You know why I didn't keep running? I told myself it was too dangerous to run outside in the winter. There was too much snow. "But you could run inside," I thought. But I HATE the treadmill. I'll just do workout videos during the winter. But I didn't. And as the weeks went by I kept thinking I should run again before I waste my efforts, but then there was this nagging voice in my head telling me it was probably too late and I'd have to start over again. Looks like another self-fulfilling prophecy.

So here I am six months later. Seth sent me a text today daring me to guess what he'd just done. For some reason I immediately knew he'd gone running. Maybe it was because we'd driven past Brigham City the day before and Seth said, "Remember when we ran our 5k?" Yeah I remembered. I'd brought our running shoes with us on our trip to Idaho this weekend. Not to use for running... just to have in case we needed to do lots of walking or something. Seth unpacked the car when we got home and handed me the pairs of shoes to put away. I saw a certain look in his eye when he gave them to me. I felt a twinge of guilt and pretended not to notice.

After Seth told me he'd gone running, it immediately gave me a little nudge of motivation. I thought maybe I should go running when I got home. But on the way home it was raining. Ok it was barely sprinkling and by the time I got home it had stopped. Then I was hungry. So I made dinner. Then I wanted to watch my shows. So I did. It's definitely too late to go out now. I'll do Muscle Motion again. In fact by that time I'd given up on the idea of doing any sort of physical activity for the day. My plan was to watch more tv. Then Seth sent me another message suggesting maybe we sign up for another 5k. I cringed at the thought. I'd have to run again if we did that. But then something clicked in my brain. YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO START. YOU WILL NEVER RUN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO. YOU WILL NEVER START WORKING OUT AND YOU WILL ALWAYS BE OUT OF SHAPE.

For some reason that woke me up. I knew I needed to sign up for another race because otherwise, I would never accomplish my goals. It worked last time and I knew it would work again. So, before I even signed up for a race, I put my running clothes on and walked out the door.

As I began to walk down the street to warm-up, I thought, "Maybe it won't be that bad. Maybe I'll still be able to run good." But, after about a quarter mile of running, my chest and throat hurt too much to keep going. At that point I realized I was going to have to start all over. I would have to start at the very beginning. Run for 1 minute. Walk for 4. Upping my running gradually one week at a time. I'd finally procrastinated for so long that I'd made myself start all over.

At this point I should have been congratulating myself. You're finally doing it! You're running! You're outside and you're trying! Seth isn't here to cheer you on and you're still doing it! You're doing it all by yourself! Look at this beautiful place you live with the green grass and blooming flowers and towering mountain views! You did 40 minutes of physical activity! But all I could think was how much I'd lost. How far I'd fallen and how far I was going to have to go to get it all back. I told myself I'd never get back to this point and here I was. Sigh.

It's no wonder I've talked myself out of running for so long. Who would want to with this brain throwing out guilt and belittling comments for a whole 2 miles? I know I'm not going to get very far with this attitude. So I'm using this post as a way to vent my frustrations. A way to get rid of all these negative feelings and to just start over. Again.

I can do it. I know I can. I've done it before. This time is going to be harder. I'm on my own. No Coach Seth around every night to make me get off the couch. It's all me. But I can do it. And I'm not going to quit this time.