Talking to Myself, Part 2

5 more days until the big day and I'm getting nervous. 

I still haven't made it to 6.2 miles but I'm hoping the adrenaline on race day will help me finish. Right now it takes me 54 minutes to run 5 miles so I'm estimating it will take me 1:15 to finish the 10K. My goal is to finish without walking and without dying. =)

My friend, Lauren, has recently written about her own journey toward becoming a runner. To read her post, click here. 

I wanted to share a few more things about my training process. If you're looking for ways to improve your time, train for long distances, or a regimented training schedule, you won't find it here. I know absolutely nothing about any of that. 

What I can share is what has worked for me as I have tried to transform my own thinking about myself. I wrote this post about learning to talk kindly to myself and I wanted to share a few of my other "tricks." 

First of all, I'm a firm believer that you have to focus on the good. When I was a teacher and had to do parent teacher conferences, I always, always started the conference by sharing something good about my student. Sometimes that was hard. Sometimes I had a student who was three grade levels behind in reading and math and who never turned in her homework, who got in trouble every day and had trouble getting along with her peers. Despite all this, I would search deep down and find something positive to say. "Ms. Johnson, your daughter sure has a lot of energy! I love that about her!" 

The same is true for training. Every day after I run, I make a list of things I did well that day. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes I have to really dig deep to find something to be proud of. I kept running when I wanted to stop. I ran through that really painful cramp. I got out of bed this morning and went for a run even though I didn't want to. 

Doing this takes the emphasis off how far or how long I ran (because I'm NOT always proud of that) and focuses on the good. I believe that, just like with my students, being kind and gentle is more effective than beating myself up for what I can't do. 

Finally, I keep track of every day I run by circling the date in my calendar. Again, this takes the focus off of how far I ran and instead reminds me how hard I am working. Running is tricky. You have good days and bad days. Just because I ran 5 miles last week with no pain doesn't mean I can do it today. It is frustrating, but that's how it goes. Instead of focusing on the distance, I focus on the number of days that I get up and run. 

I hope this helps! I'd love to hear about your own struggles with running or with talking kindly to yourself!