I Just Put On My Big Girl Panties

I think I've got my head on straight again. Once I realized that it's okay to have little setbacks as long as I don't let them get me down so much that I want to give up, it was a huge relief to me. For the past week or more, I've been fighting with myself. There's been this nagging voice in the back of my head saying, "Get out there! You've got to run today! You'll fall behind if you don't!" and all it accomplished was to make me want to scream, "NO. I don't want to! Be quiet!"

Several of us talked last night at training about how many of us were raised with such a work ethic that if you don't give 110% to whatever you do, it's not enough. I've always felt if I can't do something well and be one of the best at it, then why do it?

Dental hygienists are notoriously perfectionistic. Nine times out of ten, they're overachievers and always have been. Anything less than an 'A' just won't do. They tend to follow the rules to a fault. Now Jamey would argue that I haven't always followed them, and well, it's true - I did run a 5K before I was supposed to, but it's just that the opportunity presented itself and I treated it as just another running day. I didn't try to win it, I just wanted to run it. (How's that for justification?)

But this whole running venture is another thing altogether. It's okay to want to win, but that isn't why I wanted to be a part of the training for the half-marathon. It wasn't for the race that I applied, it was the training. Just being physically fit enough to run/walk the half-marathon will be the reward of the hard work we are all putting in up until that time.

Without Jamey's direction, expertise, and encouragement, none of us would be where we are, no matter where each of us is in our training level. We are each individuals and we will reach our own personal goals at a pace that our bodies and minds allow. For me, I feel like it's my mind that has been giving me the most trouble lately.

However, once I stopped being so hard on myself and realized that I will eventually 'get there,' even if it's slower than I like, it was like a load off my mind. It just took me a couple of weeks to figure that out.

Whew.