Weekend Motivation 67

I’ve dabbled in a few sports in a bigger way, none that involve teamwork or a whole lot of co-ordination btw like swimming, yoga and mountain biking but I have to say I don’t think any have made me as tough as long distance running. And I do mostly mean mentally tough but also physically tough as well. I don’t want to get anyone’s hair up over this and maybe I haven’t tried the one that makes you a warrior yet, but running is the one that does it for me. Even though I ride single track by myself in the woods (if you do too please read this, please) I still feel like it’s me and m bike. If I don’t want to attempt an obstacle I don’t. Swimming at least the way I do it means I’m always within yelling distance to someone even though my nightly swims take me about half a km off-shore in the summer and bot take more skill, running as made me tougher. Running is just putting one foot in front of the other for a very, very long time right? Well not really, it’s doing that when you’re tiered, running in 5 different villages at a time, doing it in the snow, when all you want to do is stop and when you’re inner voice is telling you that you can’t and you keep going anyway. It’s a moving metaphor for, moving past issues, moving forward and leaving lots of things behind. 

It’s probably not something I can totally explain to you if you’ve never done it but I’ll try. No matter how many gadgets you drag along it’s just you out there and how it goes is up to you. There’s no gear to blame your disappointing performance on but yourself. Wow this is turning into a long one! Let’s be honest you’re probably not calling for a pickup if even if you should so I’ve run in post tropical storms, in searing pain (shouldn’t have done that) and while crying.  Doing all that makes me feel invincible in every day hard spot.

Noe onto the physical stuff, that’s pretty strong too. Recently Honey’s son and his friend, both 23 year old roofers were over discussing how long they could run for. They each figured it was about 5-7 minutes before they’d have to stop. While I mentioned that my longest ever run from a couple of months ago was 2 hours and 44 minutes but I could probably go longer if I needed to. They both turned and looked at me like I had 6 heads and that we pretty cool. Also it turns out all the kids at my old high school now do a fitness test, something we never had to do. Upon hearing this new information I was eager to challenge my 15 year old self in the test since I’m in way better shape then her and I’s totally kick her ass. Sure some of my fitness comes from other stuff but running is more than enough to beat 20 year younger me in a fitness test. 

So I picked my toughest looking running picture from this summer for this one.  While you’re out there this weekend remember whatever you’re doing you’re on tough cookie!