What Can I Learn From This

I don't always love to run. It hurts, it's hard, it knocks your confidence in a blink of an eye, but if you can take a step back and ask yourself, "what can I learn from this?" you might just learn something about yourself or about running that will only make you into a better person/runner.

This week was an assessment week in my training. My friend, Omar, who I am working with in training had me run a 1.5, 3, and 6 mile time trials. Basically you run these distances as fast as you can. For the 1.5 mile and 3 mile run, I set a new PR. 1.5 was 10:55 (7:16 average pace), 3 miles was 22:57 (7:39 average pace) But this morning, well, this morning was rough. It hurt, it was extremely hard, it knocked my confidence, and left me feeling very discouraged. So as I sit outside, waiting for my family to wake up, I ask myself, "what can I learn from this?"

Right now, my answer is simply, "I am not there yet so I need to get back out there and train for it."

I emailed my friend, Omar, and told him of my discouraging run. He said back to me, "I'm glad you are hard on yourself because that's what separates a champion from a contender."

That hit me. I've always been taught that being hard on yourself isn't a good thing, but I suppose it can be. If you channel those emotions as fuel to the fire. Don't let a hard run defeat you. Or better yet, don't let a hard run DEFINE you. I posted on my instagram, "a hard run doesn't define you, what you do about does." If I quit after every hard run I've had, I would be no where near where I am today. I have more hard runs than not. "Running is not easy. If it were, EVERYONE would be doing it."

So, I say to all of us who have had a hard run, "buck up buttercup, pull your big girl/boy panties up, and GET BACK OUT THERE!"