If you believe it you can do it!

This week of runs went very smoothly. I needed a new loop for the five mile run since I was getting very bored with my usual one, using gmap-pedometer I found a loop that brought me down near the river and around a very beautiful neighborhood that reminded me of Sudbury. I finished the run in 54 minutes (totally mind boggling since my best 5 mile up to that point was 56-57 minutes). I thought that maybe gmap-pedometer had lied to me about the distance and the following day I took my car out to double check, it was in fact 5 miles. The third run of the week came on Saturday after work before my night out in Providence with Shawn to celebrate one-year! I cut it by .2 miles and did 3.8 instead of a full four but was booking it and finished in 40 minutes.

On the drive to Providence I found myself talking about how I am of the belief that things will work out in life the way they are meant too. That doesn't mean that we have don't have a say, everyone can make their life what they would like. It's just my belief that even in tough times (ex. the year at Miami) things will turn out okay and they do (ex. I ended up with one of my best friends to this day still from that year and I ended up at Northeastern and eventually in Tahiti because of that). I guess it'd be called an optimistic view on life, I've never doubted that my life would, will, is a good life, despite the hiccups along the way. Yet I realized this morning that it wasn't translating into my running.

Running is a mental game for me, to a point where running on a certain side of the road will end up in a better run. I'm at a point where a 4 mile run isn't hard and yet when I run on one road in Westerly about 2 miles into my run without fail I will want to walk. I'll talk myself through it and as soon as I turn the corner off Clark St. my mind switches and I continue on to complete the run without wanting to walk again. This morning I practiced some positive thinking and told myself the run would be great, it wouldn't matter how long it took, I wouldn't walk, I would just continue going until I hit the end. I repeated "I am a marathoner, I feel good, This run is easy" pretty much on a continous loop as I ran today.

With all the positive thoughts streaming through my head, I ended up completing 11 miles in 2:04 today!! Woohoo. Each coming week will be as good as this one has been, because I believe it will be :)

J.