26.2 For The Heck Of It

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Today I ran a marathon. On the treadmill. I started running at 5:50 A.M. and climbed off the treadmill three hours and 51 minutes later, drenched but happy. 

Why 26.2? I'm not trained for it. In fact, I'm under trained due to being injured all season. So why? 

Maybe because last night, as I was thinking about my run for the next day, I was feeling decidedly unmotivated. I needed a 20-miler which did not sound like fun. At all. I was mentally bargaining with myself for 18 miles, then 15, except I was pretty sure given my less-than-enthusiastic reaction to those numbers that I'd end up sand bagging and running somewhere around twelve--if I was lucky. 

Then it occurred to me--I could run a marathon.

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Decide What You Want To Do & Then Find People Who Are Better At It Than You

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Yesterday I ran the inaugural Fleet Feet Pickle, an 18.2-mile store-to-store charity run for Backpack Beginnings. Later that night, I attended a “Post-Pickle Party.” Someone at the party asked how long I’d been running and if I’d always been as fast as I am now.

My answer was no, nowhere close. I was a 10-minute miler at best when I started running. I remember thinking that if I could ever only hold a 9-minute pace for a 5K, I’d never ask for anything ever again.

“So how did you get faster?” was the follow-up question.

My answer is that I run with runners who are faster than me.

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Dumpster Diving

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Yesterday I went dumpster diving. Not because I’m a zealous re-use advocate and not because I’m an environmentalist and not even because I was hungry and there was no food in the house (which would be the most likely reason for me to give dumpster diving a shot). No, the reason I went dumpster diving is… wait for it… because I dropped the cat’s poo-trashcan in there.
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Reset Your Life

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I was running with a friend today and as we were cranking out the last mile of a 15-mile run, we came to a traffic light and had to stop for about 10 seconds before we could continue running. 

"Reset!" called out my friend. 

She explained that any time she has to take a pause in running, she considers it a reset and adopts the mindset that with the first step taken after the reset, it's a new run. 

This makes a lot of sense to me. It's amazing what a 10-second break can give you in a run. You get your lungs back, your legs quit shaking and it really is like starting over. I love that she takes it one step further and considers the continuation of the run a new run entirely. 

I'm going to apply this idea of "reset" to life.

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