Friday, July 1, 2011

Cajones

Yep, that really is the title of my post today.

I forget sometimes that running is as much mental as it is physical. You have to learn to expect pain and push yourself through it if you're ever going to improve. Gasping lungs, screaming quads, burning glutes...it's actually kind of easy compared to fighting the urge to stop. And of all people, I feel like endurance athletes have the greatest mental fortitude. They push themselves through all of it to add distance, to improve times, to be king of whatever mountain that they choose to tackle.

My motivation has, as of late, been lacking. I discussed a lot of my excuses in my last post, but even while running, I have fallen victim to the seductive suggestion of rest. "It's okay, I have 100 days of training left..." Clearly, this will not do. My prerogative yesterday was to tackle that, to retrain my will, to redevelop the cajones that got me back into running and crossing the finish line with a PR. I figured the best way for me to do that was to run exhausted. This proved to be much easier than I expected.


I think anyone who has made their way from Lake Union to the top of Capitol Hill can tell you that the Eastlake stairs constitute a formidable beast. With an elevation gain of nearly 500 ft in less than a mile, they pose one of the more difficult climbs in this fair city. Running them once is insane enough, but I was really looking for flat-out, ready to cry exhaustion. While one round on these stairs was probably enough to qualify me as exhausted, I pushed myself twice. The idea was to put myself in such an uncomfortable position that I would promise my first-born child if it meant I could stop and walk -- but push through and take on a 4 mile run...without stopping, of course :)





All I can say is "mission accomplished." After that second ascent, I damn near died. My lungs felt worse than I've experienced in all my life, and my legs, already jelly from my Wednesday "step 'n sculpt" class, decided to just go numb. At least I had lack of feeling on my side :) I wanted to quit so badly as I pushed myself up the hill through Volunteer Park. I will admit that the absence of cars and pavement made this climb much easier for me, but it was still hard. The entire time, my mind was yelling at itself: "This is for YOU! We're making you stronger, harder, better!" When I finally crested the zenith of my journey, I thought that my lungs would explode and that my legs would fall out from under me. Luckily, I had a good mile or so of descent to my favorite running trail in all the world, and the only real expectation was to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I finished exhausted, having found my smooth on Interlaken. It's like I hit cruise control at a pace that was *just faster* than comfortable, which brought me to the finish line for the day. I was exhausted, but I was too pleased with myself to be upset.

Note to self: this exercise is worthwhile. The mental training is huge and my legs feel fantastic today.

How do you train your brain to push through those times when you want to give up?

3 comments:

ShortSkirts said...

nice run, and those stairs look scary. I did hill sprint intervals in Volunteer Park one day, it was totally tough and people looked at me like i was crazy, but I think its so pretty back there

Generation X (Slomohusky) said...

you got one on me. i have never run these stairs. great job!

Kristen said...

@ShortSkirts: man -- sprint intervals uphill? You are crazy, woman! CRAZY! (In a good, "wow, I admire you to death!" way).

@GenX: Clearly you need to come back to Seattle sometime to put me in my place :)