mind over matter

You may not know, but I'm training for a half marathon I'm running in Kansas City on Nov 22ND. Today was my 10 mile run and I was very nervous. Last weekend's 8 miler was pretty rough on me. To make matters worse, my friend Katy (with whom I'm training) was having some IT band problems and would probably take it pretty slow today...and that's if she was even able to make it the full 10 miles. So, after the first quarter mile I ran ahead and spent most of the run not knowing if she was behind me or if she had to stop, turn around and head home due to her injury.

I find training alone very hard because I have a hard time motivating myself. So, I was pretty nervous about running the 10 miles, basically, alone. I felt pretty good the first 7 miles or so---by the way, Katy was able to run 8 miles and I saw her when I turned around after mile 5, so it was comforting knowing she was still behind me---and then I started to psych myself out. You see, I truly think most of running is just mind over matter and I can easily start to lose focus on running and start focusing on the hills coming up or the sore muscles...basically anything to get me off track.

Right around mile 7.5, I was running towards a female walker decked out in head to toe zebra print. Thankfully, this lady gave me big smile, a thumbs up and said, "You're doing awesome!". Even though she was a total stranger, that was exactly the boost that I needed in order to keep pushing on. So, if you ever see someone running that looks like they're training (a Fuelbelt and Garmin are good indicators:), please say something uplifting to them to cheer them on! The last couple miles were rough as they were all uphill but I was pleased that I finished without walking an inch!