Friday Five

Messed up week, lots of work, Nancy was sick all week and had tons of meetings, I had a ton of meetings. Didn't get as many runs in as I'd have liked, but that's life. I did get in a nice fiver Friday afternoon and felt really good. I'm reading Born to Run" and it's great. I was reading about a woman who was a dominant ultra-runner in the mid-90s, and her description of the sensuality and romance of running really made an impact. It's all about listening to your body every second and dialing it back when necessary, and turning it up when able. It's how you find your rhythm and I have to say that the run started great, it got a bit choppy, and then I found my flow and felt great for the last half. It was fun, and I'm looking to take this attitude into tomorrow's 20. Listen to my body, dial it back, ramp it up, find my flow. I've been espousing the semi-spiritual side of running for a while, and I know inherently to dial it back, but some sort of competitive beast gets going and I want to push it -- I didn't listen so well last week, and got burned. I dialed it up from 4-8 and when things got funky around 9 I didn't listen and blew up because I kept pushing it and didn't listen and ruined my flow. It's not that I dislike competition -- I'm competitive -- but I compete in some other areas of my life and don't necessarily feel the need right now to compete in running. Running is an outlet, a mode of expression, a way of life. I was projecting into the future on my run and thinking how cool it would be to some day run with my kids -- 5Ks, halfs, whatever. I hope I'm setting a good example, I hope I can run well and strong for a long time and imbue my kids with a love of running. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, and, as is mentioned often in "Born To Run," I'm going to approach it with an open heart, and run for the love of it, and see where it all goes. I think my goals tomorrow are to 1) have fun and run with an open heart, 2) run healthy, 3) finish strong.