You know what a cool thing about people is? They are kind of hard to figure out. Complicated.
And so it is that me who is a really solid planner, who always follows a training plan and who doesn’t have a spontaneous bone in my body is prone to giant outbursts of doing batshit crazy stuff from time to time.
The last time I did that I was heading out for a 34km run having only ran 30kms before and I decided half way through that to just go for 40. Like you do. And this time it was somebody from my local area saying hey is anyone doing this trail run? And me saying well I have done zero training on trail, I just ran a 10km race last weekend, and I’m not going to pick the easier option, I’m going to run 25km up hilly trail with no real plan.
It’s kind of liberating though isn’t it? To do something so completely out of your reach on the hope that you might actually be able to do it. And then when you find out you can, well I won’t lie. You’re just going to use that as justification for doing the next batshit crazy thing that enters your head. But it will also get you through those walls. The next time I’m on a run and I hit a wall, I will remember hitting the wall at the 18km mark of that trail run thinking there is no way I can do this. I just can’t. But you dig deeper, you find another gear and prove to yourself, that actually you can.
A huge part of my running journey so far has been proving myself wrong. When I started I couldn’t conceive of every running an unbroken kilometre. And when I did that, I couldn’t imagine ever doing 2. And when I did that I couldn’t imagine ever running for an hour. And even when that was done, I was terrified of running outside. And then something clicked over and I did run outside and instead of thinking I could never run a half marathon, I thought I could.
There’s always going to be an argument in your head between the part of you that wants to stop and the part of you that wants to keep going. There’s always going to be that conflict between the part of you that says you can’t and the part of you that says you can. There’s a quote that I like. If you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right. Even more than that though, I’m in the business of teaching myself that I can, so most of the time my brain agrees with me.
I love that saying about whether you think you can or you think you can’t we are right. I feel really alive when I push myself to that line and find that next gear. Mind you I’ve never run 25k on a trail on my hands and knees! You are crazy lady.