Running is a Mental Sport

It’s been a while, but I’m back in action! France was wonderful for my soul. I truly believe that taking care of yourself needs to extend beyond the things you do for your physical body. If you’re not healthy emotionally and mentally, your physical health doesn’t mean as much.

That being said, this post will be an attempt to draw a connection between mental and physical activity. Here we go!

Most of you know I have been working my way through the Couch to 5K training program. Starting out, I could not call myself a runner by any stretch of the imagination. I remember doing distance running in track my senior year of high school. I quit after three days. It was not fun.

So when I decided that I wanted to start running this year I knew I would be facing some hurdles.

The first four weeks of the nine week program went smoothly. I worked my way up from doing 1 minute running intervals to eventually doing 5 minute intervals. After every run I felt good about what I had just accomplished. And then came week five.

Week five had me doing eight minute intervals, which was intimidating enough since I had never run for eight minutes in a row EVER. But I did it, and it actually seemed pretty easy. Unfortunately, the last day of week five calls for a five minute warm up walk, followed by a twenty minute run, and finished up with a five minute cool down walk. TWENTY MINUTES. I was terrified.

I put up a post on Fitocracy about how nervous I was for this one. I received so much encouragement from people who have successfully gone through the program. They assured me that while it looks scary on paper, the twenty minute run isn’t as bad as it seems. I was confident that my body could handle it, but I was really looking at a mental hurdle. The true test would be whether I could overcome my fear of this thing.

And I did. I woke up at seven this morning and I killed it. As I finished the last thirty seconds of the run, I must have looked like the biggest goofball. I had a huge smile on my face because I was so proud. Proud of what my body was capable of, yes, but mostly proud of my willpower to overcome fear and intimidation.

Recognizing that running is more than just physical determination, but mental determination as well, made me think about how many times I have made excuses and held myself back. How many times have I claimed that I physically can’t do something when it was really just an issue of errors in thinking?

In light of these events and realizations, I am determined not to let my brain hold me back. I am going to set goals and run at them.

Looking forward to brighter days,