Change the Way You Think

This morning Mark and I went for a run, and at 5:00 AM we were clomping around our subdivision. Mark was wearing his neon vest and a flashing light on the back and I was wearing a flashing light on the front of my bright green shirt. Style was not an option, we looked tacky and we were sweaty but we were on a mission.

We have decided to run an 8K (5 miles) at the end of August. This works well with my personal goal to someday run a 10K (6.2 miles) my thinking is that it gets me that much closer to my goal. This morning after our run, I told Mark that I was not sure if I could get my mileage up to 5 miles. His questions were; "How did you feel after we ran 3.1 miles this morning, were you winded? Could you have kept going?" My response was "I felt fine running, I just kept thinking, I just want to be done" That is when Mark said to me, "I guess you have to change the way you think!" Really, does he think it is that easy? That was my first thought and then it hit me, this is hard to do, but if I push through this and reach my goal, I will feel so much better than if I keep looking at my goal hanging out there and I keep pointing at it but not obtaining it. I also realized that his advice works for all of the things happening in my life right now.

I could just keep feeling like the world is piling on with the various estate and family issues, or I can walk through each thing as if I was walking through my house switching off the lights. There is never going to be any easy way out or an emotional escape, I am going to have to just "Change the way I think" like Mark suggested. There is no promise that things will be easy in our lives. We will have the 3 mile run that feels like it goes on forever and the 5 mile run that we built up to and complete with ease. The difference is how badly we want to get through the rough spots and how we think about all of it.

It reminds me of the Army slogan "It's not a job, it's an adventure". I have never been in the Army, but I am guessing that there are a lot of days when the adventure seems more like a job, but the option to quit is not there. I think I am going to adopt the Army slogan as my runner's mantra and since it fits, I am also going to use it as my life's motto for the time being. Anything that can help me make my way through the endless to do list floating in my head will be a blessing. Having Mark as my pace car during my runs and in my life is also a blessing, and all I had to do was just change my thinking, who knew? I think even though we did not reach our ultimate goal this morning, we got farther than we thought. My neon vest and flashing light wearing husband gave me something to think about and a shot at reaching my goal. This is definitely a mission that could turn into an adventure.