.... for life. I ran in a 10 mile race today on Long Beach. Mostly flat, humid temperatures, small crowd and generally known as a "fast race". I really wanted to push myself and see what I could accomplish. There were moments of joyish abandon, being in the zone and feeling great. And then there were moments when my body wanted to revolt and went into a trance like state. It turned out to be brutally hard. I held a way faster than average (for me) pace for the first 6 miles and then I crashed. Not only did my body hate every step but my mind started winning the battle. I considered walking several times. My mind was telling me it was ok to quit. I had to combat the physical fatigue but I really struggled to win the mental battle. Isn't that what's life is like? There are times of joy and times of pain. It's what you do with those times, and the in between times, that matter most. Do I quit, give up the race and walk across the finish line or do I keep putting one foot in front of other and regardless of the pace, finish the race to the best of my ability? I kept saying, "I will just run the next half mile and then I'll quit"... over and over until a bunch of half miles added up to 3 and then 4 miles. Mile numbers 7 and 8 were the toughest but then there were only 2 to go. How could I quit so close to the end? Yet I had to keep fighting my mind. I even thought of quitting less than a half mile from the finish... it was that bad! But the point is, I didn't quit.
As it turns out, my time was really pretty good. My fast pace for the first 6 made up for my slow pace of the last 4. It all evened out in the end. Hmmmm.... another metaphor.
And I thought I was just going out to do a road race today. I didn't realize it was going to be a lesson in psychology.
