I love running on Sunday. I can ALWAYS run on Sunday. Meaning, I feel IT. The IT that signals my brain that I can do this. That I can run. And when my brain is “feelin’ IT”, then my body follows. Sunday is the day I feel strong and able to go faster and further than any other day of the week. This turns out to be lucky, because Sunday is my Long Run day, and I kinda have to! Go further, that is. In my training plan, I have one day a week where I have to push myself for distance, building up my endurance to be able to take on 13.1 miles. This week was the start of my half marathon training, so my Long Run amounted to a 5 mile run. Since I had completed the Bridge to 10K program, I had confidence that I could run 6 miles without stopping, so I’m starting from a place of Fact. This is sort of why I did the B-to10K. I wanted to KNOW. Are you one of those people? The kind that prefers Facts instead of Faith? I never really saw myself in this way. In many many areas of my life I am long on faith. I have faith in my marriage, in God, in my fellow-man (well, some of them – just being honest, keepin’ it real!!) But when it comes to myself, I had to dig a little deeper to explore the question. Do I have faith in myself? Immediate reaction was Um, Yes. Yes I do! Ok, easy does it – this is not the confessional. Well, Ok, yes, on a lot of topics I have faith in myself. I’m a committed partner, friend, wife, mother. I’m true blue in the trust department. I can be trusted to keep confidences, to keep secrets, to keep sacred bonds, and to follow laws. I’m a Do-Good-er. Not sure if that’s a real word, it might get bumped by the spell checker, but that is what I am. I do the “right” thing when faced with a choice, even if it doesn’t serve me as well as the alternative choice. So my moral faith and mental strength is so THERE. But when I consider my physical strength, my faith in myself in the physical sense, well….this is where it starts to get wishy-washy. More spell checker worries, oh well. I have never EVER used words like strong, athletic, dedicated, about myself when describing physical attributes about myself. I’ve let my body down by not using my faith and strengths in the mental fortitude department and not investing in my body’s capabilities. So that became one of my million baby steps when I even considered, even suggested to myself that I could run, walk, or crawl for 13.1 miles.
I decided that I needed to invest in my physical strength by building up my mental fortitude about my body. In many ways, this is the journey off the couch that C25K started. I left all my snacks behind between the couch cushions and started walking, running, biking, moving for other payoff. The prize at the bottom of this cracker jacks box was that the more I ran, the more I wanted to run. The better I got at running the better I wanted to be as a runner. It completely fed into itself, and I learned just how much my body could enjoy moving. I thoroughly enjoyed being good at something that I used to look at as punishment. Oh god, don’t make me run. That was my internal voice. Now, I hear myself Cheering ME On that I can make the next mile, that I can finish the 10K! I CAN train for this Half Marathon and Finish! This voice is particularly Loud and Clear and Strong and Positive on Sunday.
So I’m not sure when I began to love running on Sunday. I don’t know WHEN that happened. And I’m not entirely sure I know the full WHY it happened either. It may be partly because on Sunday I am a Free-Agent. I am free of thoughts of work, and commuting, and commitments and obligations, free of that stress. I’m free of the worries of my kids and school, and homework, and Saturday chores are behind me, so my mind is not distracted by them. Plus I have a good night of sleep under my belt. Then there is the fact that it’s nice and quiet on the roads on Sunday morning. No kids in the street, no cars to zig zag around. So I can run and the world feels like it’s mine. The sun rise is happening just for me, and I’ve come to realize how much I really love that. So Sunday is my STRONGEST day. The day I feel the best I can be. I can always run my farthest and my fastest on Sunday. THIS turns out to be REALLY advantageous, cuz… guess…what….day…..the….Half Marathon…..race …is ??? Tee-hee—hee, yeah. It’s delicious….It’s SUNDAY! I LOVED that the first time I connected those dots. And when I draw the lines from dot A to dot Z – the picture comes in clear……. ……it’s me……running……strong……on a Sunday…….to the finish line…..of my 1st Half Marathon…..with a BIG OLE SMILE on my face.
Ciao for now…..Diane