Finding Motivation to Push Myself Forward... Saturday, February 28

You know what's more fantastic than travelling 2.5hrs out to Seoul in the weekend traffic to meet up with a sponsor at a grand massive sports show that is two floors big? I'll tell you, it's showing up 20 minutes after the show has ended for the day, not being able to meet who you were supposed to meet, and not knowing in the first place that it'd be ending so early.  Or perhaps what was more fantastic than that was being surprised with one of my once-in-a-blue-moon periods and having no purse or bag to stash the box of tampons my husband so casually bought for me -- I think he's more comfortable buying them than I am... hahaha.  So we had a box of tampons to carry between the two of us and I stuck to storing my share in my sports bra.

But the day didn't start off so sarcastically fantastic, instead it was pretty great.  Rocket and I met up for our weekly long run.  Today our goal was to get in a 25km run. 

I've always been a long distance runner -- my short Polish legs can't move me fast like a sprinter but I can run and run -- but between Rocket and me, I feel that Rocket excels in distance and me in speed.  She's done numerous full marathons whereas this marathon in April will be my first.  I push her with the pacing and she pushes me with the distance; it's a perfect match.  Our long runs together aren't easy though.  They're successful but they are down right tough, rough and gruelling.  We're good, experienced runners but don't kid yourself, our long runs are on a level 10 for us and the proof is in our pacing and, in today's case, the fact that I pushed myself so hard I puked with still a kilometre left to the run. 

We kick our own butts on the long runs and it's super easy to get discouraged.  Running is very much a mental activity for me.  My legs can get me through the run, it's my mind I have to win over and convince.  I had woken up today regretting that it was Saturday, the day of our long run.  Long runs are hard; I feel the aftermath of them long into the new week. No sooner had I got my grumpy, I-don't-want-to-run-but-have-to sleepy bedhead self out of bed, I then got a text message from a Hulkie, I got several text messages from a few Hulkies actually.  One wished me luck on the run and told me to drink coffee for more energy, another called me a beast and then one sarcastically wished for me to be sore, like how I had made him sore at training the other day.  And just like that, I decided I was going to just do it.  Give it all I got.  So we headed out to Asan and as I ran around the lake I made a conscious effort to pay more attention to those around me, those also on the path, and I made mental notes of the motivation they gave me so that I could push myself through the gruelling run and future runs.

Motivation out on the path today was...

• the guy who yelled out what lap we were on every time we passed him. We passed him 5 times.
• the woman with the big sunglasses and beenie hat that is out there every Saturday walking as we run. We've become a familiar face to each other and I like that.
• the guy who was out there running the path too today, who kept throwing us smiles.
• the two guys who clapped for us.
• the older couple who saw us up ahead and suddenly broke out into a friendly race.
• the older gentleman who gave us thumbs up and cheered us on.
• the little doggie I called out to as I passed. He wagged his tail in response -- super cute.
• seeing a fellow foreign female doing laps.
• knowing that this time only a couple of months ago I wouldn't have been able to keep up this pace with this distance.
• having a husband that not only wakes up early on his day and drives us all the way out there and back but who also sits for over two hours in the car waiting as we run.
• knowing that we only have to do a long run once a week.
• realizing that we have pretty much managed to keep the same pacing for our long runs as we do our short runs.
• knowing that I'm not out there struggling alone on the run; I'm there with my running partner.
• knowing that I'm running with an experienced marathon runner who thinks I can do this.
• knowing that my sponsors are going to be proud of today's distance covered.
• the two buzzed older men in the coffee shop who lifted their beers to us, greeted us with big smiles and asked us about the run we just finished.
• the store man who instantly started to make us fresh coffee when we came in after our run -- fresh coffee and hard boiled eggs, it's our "long run tradition" for the long car ride back to Cheonan.