Day 36: Here Comes the Sun

 It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood today friend and I've got nothing but good things to report. No cussing, no complaining, no referencing porn stars or gross things. It's finally cold out, non-stop Christmas music is on the radio and I leave for the happiest place on earth in 3 days. So things are good in the hood today.
I want to thank everyone for last week's overwhelming show of support in the face of my debacle that was the Thanksgiving 5k err 10k run. I also want to say a huge Thank you to the members of the Tupelo Running Club. You were very patient and extremely kind and gracious to me and I continue to have nothing but the utmost respect and highest praise for you all.
So this week I received my first Christmas present of the year. A Garmin Forerunner watch. This thing keeps up with everything; distance, pace, course, heart rate. I'm pretty sure it will tell me when I need to pee if I could only figure out which button it was. I love it! I put that big sucker on my wrist and I felt like Magnum P.I. Up until this point, I've been relying on the Cardiotrainer program on my phone to record my distances and pace. While sometimes I've questioned the validity of the information it was recording, I've never really wanted to know because if it was off, it was always off to my advantage. Remember that 11 minute mile? Well, I decided Thursday evening to workout with both the watch and the phone so I could compare the results. After my first mile, I looked at my phone: 1 mile in 10.5 minutes. The Garmin watch: .75 miles in 10 minutes. Ugh. So there's that.
I continued my workout. I started to run while I planned out in my head the juicy email that I was going to send to the Cardiotrainer people. I mean, a quarter of a mile error range is pretty freaking, I mean, pretty stinking big! Especially when I know that come race day, if I can't stay below a 15 minute mile, that Mickey Mouse golf cart is going to come and "sweep" me off the course and I will not receive my Tiara medal and I will be piiissse...........sad. I will be sad. No cussing Lisa, no cussing.
I carried on, running/walking through the night. I stopped off at my parents house for a water break. My dad asks: "So Lisa, how far are you running non-stop?" I said a mile. He says "didn't you say the same thing when I asked you that 2 weeks ago?" I said yes.
I went back out on the road. Time is 10:02 at night. I tried again. To run. To run further than a mile and not feel like I'm going to have a heart attack. It's not my legs. My legs are good. It's the breathing. I'm completely out of breath at the end of a mile. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? I began to cry. Not the ugly face cry. Just the sad, defeated cry. I began to think back to all of those articles I read by Jim Galloway. You know when you want to start something and you spend a month "researching" that thing so you'll have all the information you need to be successful and then you realize that you're really just using that as an excuse to put off that said thing you want to start and you realized you've procrastinated long enough that you don't even want to begin? I almost did that with the running. But I was thinking back to an article I read about building endurance. Jim Galloway said "If you can't hold a conversation when you're running, then you are going too fast."
My first instinct was, seriously Lisa, yeah YOU are going too fast. But then I decided to slow down. Slow way down. And you know what, I realized that this whole time, for the last six weeks, I've been  sprinting. bleeping sprinting. I am such. a. dope.
But guess what? I jogged for the next 3 miles.....without stopping. Me. Pretty face cry ensues. I could hear the Chariots of Fire music in my head. It then turned into the most awesome african-american gospel choir's version of "Oh Happy Day." I didn't get in until after 11 that night. I slept well. I had finally figured out how to run.
What made this revelation oh so sweeter was the fact that Saturday morning was the day of the Jingle bell Jog 5k. It preceded the Tupelo Christmas Parade so it was a big deal for me. I knew that there would be lots of people there on the race and parade route. My friends and family would see me and it would be the first actual race I've participated in since I began my journey as a runner. Before Thursday nights eureka moment, I was not looking forward to it. In fact, I had already begun my excuse building method. After the turkey trot fiasco, I just did not want to be embarrassed again. But now, armed with my realization that I can indeed run for a lengthy (for me) amount of time, I was excited.
Saturday morning I donned my Christmas socks and Santa Minnie hat and I jogged my first race. I jogged for 3 miles. I didn't come in last. I also didn't come in 1-50 to get my free ornament but I digress. I heard people cheer my name. My husband was there with his trusty movie camera. And my boys told everyone else there that "Momma won the race." I did indeed.
While I celebrate my mild achievement, I've also kept perspective this week. I had friends that completed the St. Jude marathon this weekend. Congratulations to all of you and thank you for being my inspiration and my heroes.
Quote of the Day: "Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going." - Jim Ryun who once held the world record for the fastest mile at 3:51.1
Song of the Day: Here Comes the Sun - the Beatles