Joy here...While Sunday was supposed to be an indoor bike riding day for me, it, like the previous Sundays, turned into a rest day. You see what happens is that my husband's cycling buddy comes over on Sunday mornings and the two of them put their bikes on our trainers, and they ride with each other, doing drills and watching cycling DVDs. It's like man-bonding time. While I'm invited to join them, I don't really want to intrude. I tell myself "I'll just ride later" or "I'll take Sunday as a rest day and ride on Monday," neither of which has happened so far. Instead, I just end up taking Sunday and Monday as two rest days right in a row, which makes Tuesday's 75 minute planned run that much harder to be motivated for.
This Tuesday was no different.
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My water bottle carrier that
sits right in the small of my back. |
It was cold and The Man is sick, so I'd be running alone or not at all. Eventually, before the sun set, I pulled myself together,
filled up my camelbak water bottle and put it its little holster and headed out the door.
As soon as I started running, I was regretting it. About 2 minutes into the run I felt like quitting; then about 12 minutes into the run I felt like quitting; by the 28 minute mark I still didn't feel any better. I was cold; my legs were tired, and more to the point, my little voice was telling me that I shouldn't be running, and that I should just sit back and take it easy. I would have been too embarrassed to return home so quickly, so I kept going in an outward direction for 40 minutes, forcing myself every step of the way. It's just that I knew that I had run for an hour and forty minutes on Saturday, so how could I NOT run for a decent distance on Tuesday? It just didn't make sense. I knew I could do it. But
knowing you can do something and
feeling you can do something are two different things. While I may have
known that I could keep on runnin', I sure didn't
feel like I could.
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| giant snowbank |
But it was so cold, that I knew if I stopped running and started walking it would be worse, so I was kind of trapped. It was like that proverbial rock and hard place. I could keep running (yuck) or I could walk (and freeze). So I just kept on running. And then I reached into my holster to pull out my water bottle and have a nice, decent swig of water, only to be met with...nothing. I could feel the water swishing in the bottle, but nothing came out. I tried to poke and prod the spout with my be-mittned hands and discovered that the entire spout was frozen solid with a coating of ice. Darnit.
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| artsy fartsy tree branch pic |
So I tried to take the entire lid off. Not an easy thing to do when it's frozen. But I prevailed against the tricky little bottle, and finally got it open. And then I held it up to my lips while the condensation billowed around my open mouth, only to drink water that had floaty ice chunks in it - more like a slushy than a bottle of water.
That should give you a sense of what the weather is like: If water carried right against the small of your back, soaking up all your core body's temperature, still turns to slush, then you know that it's darn cold!
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poor, little plant
see you in the spring time! |
After swilling some slushy ice water, I kept on going. I reached one turn-off point that would take me back home, but I was only at about the 60 minute mark. Now don't get my wrong, 60 minutes is a decent run, and I would have been happy to head home. In fact, my feet turned me in that direction and crossed the street leading me home. But then, suddenly, I was able to "mind over matter" myself and keep going to the next bridge and next turn off to my house, knowing that I'd be adding on another 15 minutes to my run. I don't know how I did it, but those last 15 minutes actually started to feel good. Finally I began to feel like my stride was getting loose and long, and finally I began to feel like I could just keep on running and running and running and not have to stop. Of course, I'm sure the fact that I knew I was on the home stretch had something to do with it, but I also think that the fact that I used my will to overcome my body's natural inclination also played a part.
At least that's what I'm telling myself.
So here are Tuesday's lonely, cold run stats:
Ran for a total of 1:17:12 for a distance of 12.42km with an average pace of 6:13min/km.
And to be honest, I just couldn't be happier.
Over and out,
Joy
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