Jog a Blog

So this morning I grudgingly put on my running attire to attempt a run with my friends at Reigate Ladies Joggers. 

Stacked against me, in my eyes, was:

1. The weather- it was tipping it down.

2. The sheer will/effort- for me to run it takes me serious and continued 'application'. 

It's not a skill I am natural at despite my hunter/gatherer instincts! 

3. I hadn't run for 2 weeks- I would be out of puff!

4. The self doubt - My mundane internal conversation that says I can't run, can't do distance, can't do speed.

I think 4 things on this list is quite sufficient. It about covers it the thick of it!

Still, I dropped the kiddies off, and onward I went to the meeting point in the car park over in Reigate. 

Now, given my general sentiment this morning, I could quite easily have talked myself out of going at numerous points, listed below:

1. When I got up and knew I had this as my agenda in the morning.

2. The minute I saw the rain clouds gather.

3. As I dropped the kids off and made my way home to collect the car to go.

4. As I sat in the car in the pouring rain stuck in traffic

5. As I pulled up into the car park to meet everyone.

So that's roughly 5 points in time I can recall thinking literally "Sod it!"

Let's apply a 'multiplier effect' of sorts, where we could take the number of reasons I didn't want to run and multiply that by the strength of that sentiment, 'Sod it' and multiply that total by the number of times I will have expressed 'said' sentiment and well...it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that my desire to 'NOT run' was sky high! - sorry, bad pun! 

That said, off I trotted. Yes, not a gallop- a mere trot. Several thoughts popped into that mind of mine:

1. "I'm dying"

2. "I can't keep up with the tribe.

3. "I am so slow- move faster legs, dammit!"

4. "Come on now, keep going!"

5. "You're a bit slow, but you're not stopping. Maybe you are the tortoise?"

6. "You're half way there!"

7. "We're turning back and looping round already?"

8. "It's downhill!"

9. "Not long till we get back to the park!" 

10. "If I get through the park then get to the car it will be done."

11. "Oh look at the sky! It's really brightened up, hasn't it?!"

12. "The sun is shining, that's nice..."

13. "The air is feeling really good. This is Autumn."

14. "Oh I'm at the park now." 

15. "I've nearly done it!"

16. "A minute to the car!" *inner voice starts to squeal ever so slightly*

17. "I've done it!" 

18. "I feel amaze-balls!"

We followed this with a circuits session in the gym. It's part of the running session working one your strength and the bit, I have to say, that  I actually love because I know it's making muscles out of me that I never knew existed  Plus it's a bit of sh*ts and giggles with each other which rounds off the session nicely.

Anyway, I digress, the point of all this chit chat today is that sometimes when we want to do anything, there can be a list of 'why not to do' which is then followed with a hundred and one reasons to back out of doing and 'avoid'. However many times people may tell you to put your positive pants on, sometimes you can't. Sometimes, you just don't want to. If someone had told me this morning - "Just think of how great you will feel afterwards", I probably would have given them a death stare or two and it would have been their 'game over'! Thankfully nobody crossed that line!

It got me thinking that sometimes you just have to simply 'do' to really 'feel'. Today I ran, I 'did' and I really felt great as my own thoughts turned away from my own negativity. Probably today, out of any running days I have ever done, it struck me that maybe my level of satisfaction and good feeling was so immense BECAUSE of my negativity. Had I not felt so negative in the first instance, (not had to drag myself, not had to talk myself out of u-turning), then yes I would have felt 'good' but not as 'great' as I did.

In this round about way, maybe what I'm trying to say is even 'negativity' has its place. It can be embraced, for what it is and modified to evolve through action. Instead of merely 'fighting' it as this feeling to demonise and berate. Maybe today I understood the act of acceptance within myself. Through acceptance I transcended a 'state' which wasn't serving me at that time, but rather than judge the feeling, and beat myself up inside for feeling that way, I just simply went with it, without wallowing in it and feeling 'stuck'. 

So, with anything, just go for it. Don't hold back despite your internal conversation. Who knows, you might feel better than 'great'. It's worth a shot right? 

The Mind Traveller x