Training – 6.2 miles

All weekend through today we have had beautiful running weather here in Boston.  It was supposed to rain, but it only drizzled a bit Sunday afternoon.  This morning it was in the upper 60s overcast and lots of fog.  There was so much fog that the Prudential Tower no longer looked like a skyscraper.  I planned on running my loop backwards and then running to the bridge and then back again.  Why backwards?  Well, it’s not good to run the same route over and over again; that is what leads to injury.  The repetitive motion on the same slanted roads day in and day out causes these injuries.  So I ran the loop backwards and when I was across the river I just had to stop and take a picture of the massive fog covering Boston.

The run went pretty well, though there were times when I struggled and I thought of a trick I used to do when I was younger.  When I was in Elementary school I hated running.  We had to run a timed mile and I was always one of the last to finish.  There were cones set up in a field around the basketball court to mark the distance of a running track.  To my small eyes it looked huge and unbearable and we had to complete it four times!  As I ran around the cones I looked down at the ground.  My mind kind of zoned out while looking at the blur that was the grass beneath my feet and when I looked up I couldn’t believe how far I had traveled.  I had figured out an easy way to distract myself to make running easier.  I know it’s not proper running technique to stare at the ground, but every now and then when I am having trouble I either look at the ground before me or think of something to distract my mind to help me get over the hurdle.  I truly believe that a lot of running is mental and it is important to come up with distractions to help you through it.  I was able to get through it this morning and finished my run in 55:31.  If you ever have mental battles while running one thing you should never do is give up!