Training Day 1

The training portion of day one is done and here are my newest discoveries.

1. Two-A-Days suck!
2. When I can conquer my head, I can conquer anything.

I woke up this morning having spent far too much of my night battling my brain for sleep. I'm on prescription meds to put me out every night. I've been on them for over two years and my body now realizing it's own physical addiction some night attempts to fight the drugs and stay up as late as it pleases and wake up as often as it wants. Last night was one of those nights.

I woke up with one of those empty kinds of headaches. Where your head feels like a cave and the only thing in it is a echoing kind of pain. I forced myself into something that resembles proper running attire and headed for the gym. On the drive over I forced down half a peanut butter sandwich with flax and two Advil. Remembering someone's advice that if you down a bottle of water first thing in the morning it jump starts your metabolism, I tried that too.

I struggled through two miles on the treadmill. I mean I really struggled, I walked for at least the first ten minutes and then dragged my sorry butt into a 13.45min/mile pace. I was tired but convinced at some point during the day I was going to appreciate what I was putting myself through. My youngest sister spent the last week with my iPod in Vegas so I tried keeping my head still enough to read the ticker on CNN without noise and force myself not to quit on my last half mile.

I kept looking at my watch battling against myself whether I was going to pick up the pace so I would have time to shower and get in a quick Bible study at Caribou when I stopped to get my $1 Special Monday morning coffee. (Hey, if we're going to put my body through boot camp this month, may as well see if I can train my Spirit into some consistency too.)I decided to barter away the shower for the slower pace. (I wasn't going to sweat anyways).

Work went by as normal as a Monday morning in an Elementary School can go. A preschooler who thought he was a gorilla, a Kindergartner whose scared of gorillas, a 3rd grader who broke up a fight by head-butting the assailant, and a 5th grader who stopped speaking and will only do school work on the hallway floor. I love my job. Even an old co-worker who is still near and dear to my heart noticed I am less stressed and walk with an air of confidence when I pass her in the halls. But I will be honest, by the end of the afternoon I am typically looking forward to the bell. But around 2 this afternoon I was dreading the end of the day because it meant another work out. At least this morning I had my day to look forward to; Coffee, a quiet moment with Beth Moore and the book of Daniel, the never-ending adventures with the kids and a tin of Altoids I keep hidden in my desk drawer. This afternoon I knew I had to the up milage, my right knee was biting back and I didn't even have anything good planned for dinner.

I forced myself into a quick change in the gym and headed back out unto the same treadmill as this morning. I quickened my pace right away, hoping the faster I went the sooner it would get over. I should be honest, I've done close to 20 official 5k races. My best recorded race time is 31.34. But I have never ran 3 miles straight without slowing down to walk. (Whether to catch my breath, reestablish my pace, or rub out a cramp). I have never run 3 straight miles until tonight that is. Again without an iPod and with a touch more resolve than this morning I started. I trained my eyes to stare at TV number 7 which was playing Judge Judy and didn't allow myself to look anywhere else but down at the treadmill once every set of commercials. I allowed my brain to focus on my favorite daydream when it was able but after mile one for most of the run my brain would just go blank.

My upper body went through it's typical aches and pains. The sharp shooting pain in my collar bones and upper chest as the muscles realize my pumping arms won't be stopping anytime soon. My right knee creaks for the first bit and the toes in my left foot slam against the tops of my shoes forcing me to curl them inward until they cramp when I can release them and my toes are too numb to care that the toe nails will be gone by the end of the week.

I realized near the end of mile one that I had not stopped. It started to take more control to keep my mind focused and the temptation to look away from Judge Judy became greater. Half way through mile two it became really hard to keep going. My brain had realized I was going to make it without stopping to walk or slowing down at all. In fact by mile two I had sped up to race goal pace. When I allowed my brain a moment to celebrate my impending achievement I instantly set myself up against it. It was taking all of my mental energy not to quit and this was only 3 miles, that's only a little over a quarter of what I have to run. And the familiar demons of failure and doom started to spread their stink in the corners of my mind. Somewhere I found the courage to start repeating to myself, "You don't think about how far you have to go, you think about how far you have come. You don't think about how far you have to go, you think about how far you have come." Until I could train my brain back into fuzziness and my eyes back unto the screen. I refused to let the humidity or the sticky, sweat to trigger asthma and forcibly kept my breath slow, calm, controlled.

When I was sure I had hit three miles I was quick to shut the treadmill off and head to the locker rooms. It spun for a while but by the time I got in the car and started noshing my post workout cup of Kashi I'd gotten the world to stand back right side up in my eyes. Sweat dripped down my face and into my eyes as I drove to my Mom's to see my sister and retrieve my iPod. And a grin curled up around the corners of my mouth. I was tempted to text a few of my friends to share my great achievement and then I realized how little it must seem in the light of all of life. I ran 3 miles, big deal. But something about my little secret achievement makes me keep smiling. I ran 3 miles!

Did it have to do with the embarrassing two-miler this morning, or the specific times I forced myself to eat peanut butter or almonds? Maybe, Probably. Was it related to the fact that I literally battled tears while I forced myself back into the gym? That I hated myself so much for making me do it that I was going to show my disciplined side? My greatest pout, my success? Maybe. No, thirty six some odd minutes to run three miles is not my crowning achievement by any means, it's not fast, it's not skill and it's for sure not what I'm aiming for. But it's three miles, it's three miles.  All I know is that today was a success and on the first day, that was all I needed.

In a few minutes I'm heading with my "big sister" to our friend's softball games which will put us home well after 11. I'd like to see my body try fighting sleep tonight.

And tomorrow, we'll do it all over again!