Do People Actually Enjoy This

Almost a year ago, I decided to start taking Tae Kwon Do.  It is very challenging, but I love it.  There are times when I hurt for a week after class, and times when it's not so hard, but it's teaching me a lot about myself and inner strength and all that kind of crap, so I like it.  As you move through the ranks in Tae Kwon Do you earn different color belts, and each belt requires something different.  In the future, running will be required for two of my tests.  A three mile for one, and for the Black belt a 6 mile.  Now, I hate running.   If you ask if there is anything I am bad at, it's most sports and running.  I usually can physically do it, it's the endurance, the control of breathing that kills me.  Once in a while I'll get a day where everything goes wrong, other times it's fabulous.   Every time I start I think "who could possibly enjoy this?", when I see people running I think, "You are crazy, why are you doing that?", and yet here I am, trying like a nut to get myself to be a runner.  

It started in January when Macy Lady and I decided that we were going to run.  

"we need to do something more"  

"yes, yes we do. let's run"  

"genius!  Let's do it".    

I wanted to run to prepare for  TKD, Macy for the sport of it.  We started the couch potato to 5k running program.  As luck would have it, another group of people were doing the same thing and their fearless leader was an old friend of mine, The Pilot.  The Pilot is one of those crazy runners who actually likes it and has completed a few marathons.    He is very good at being an inspiration and challenging us to do better and more each time.  I have gone from dreading 90 seconds of running to dreading three miles of running, which is amazing to me.  

Every minute of a run is challenging to me.  My knees hurt for the first few minutes, my muscles scream at me, but when I can get past that, I fall into a groove in which I just concentrate on keeping my breathing under control.    Today was not one of those days. Today, in all honesty, sucked and it sucked hard. I have run our local 5 k route and finished without walking any of it.  Today, our group, the Spud Butts, was going to hit it again, and I was psyched.  I felt I may be in trouble when I stepped outside and it felt a little too chilly.  I did yoga this am to get a good stretch before the run, but the one piece I consistently ignore is a little warm up run before the run.  I firmly believe that if I start doing that, life will be  better for my inner runner.  I just can't seem to leave myself enough time though and I basically started cold, again.    Usually I can tough through the initial discomfort ( The Pilot running alongside me saying "suck it up!" always helps too) but it just wasn't happening and as I was compensating for this pain and that pain, every muscle in my lower body started screaming at me to stop.    I'm looking at the people in front of me and thinking I can do this, and my limp starts feeling more pronounced, and I see the hill and I think, "aahhhhh...fuck it", and I started walking.  That was it...I watched the Butts get further and further away and I turned around with my tail between my legs and walked back to the finish line.   I was fighting back tears a little, but I don't feel like I totally gave up, I feel like I prevented injury, yup that's the way I am looking at it, ot I may start crying about it.  I am hoping to try it again later today when it's warmer.  I think my knees do not enjoy the cold temperatures, and when I went to the Good Dr. Chiro he found that my ankle and my pelvis were all sorts of off kilter which he felt would explain much of the discomfort.    So I am going to hold myself to my promise to try to run again later today.   Whether it's the full route or a modified version, I need to try.    

Though I hate running, and I really do, I see  and feel its value.  I admire people who just love running, who just go do it and have nary an issue.  I can't imagine that will ever be me, but at least I am trying.   So I am finding some quotes to keep in mind when I want to stop, apparently I'm not the only one who has discomfort. 

Top results are reached only through pain.  But eventually you like this pain. You'll find the more difficulties you have on the way, the more you will enjoy your success."
          - Juha "the Curel Vaatainen

"Running is a big question mark that's there each and every day.  It asks you, 'Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?'"
          - Peter Maher, Irish-Canadian Olympian and sub-2:12 marathoner

"Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing.  You have to make the mind run the body.  Never let the body tell the mind what to do.  The body will always give up.  It is always tired morning, noon, and night.  But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired.  When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired...You've always got to make the mind take over and keep going."
          - George S. Patton, U.S. Army General and 1912 Olympian 

"Once you're beat mentally, you might was well not even go to the starting line."
          -Todd Williams

"The body does not want you to do this.  As you run, it tells you to stop but the mind must be strong.  You always go too far for your body. You must handle the pain with strategy...It is not age; it is not diet.  It is the will to succeed."
          - Jacqueline Gareau, 1980 Boston Marathon champ

“If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.”

The five S's of sports training are: Stamina, Speed, Strength, Skill and Spirit;
but the greatest of these is Spirit.
--Ken Doherty