"Honey, I'm back in the game!" I yelled, dragging my sweaty, red-faced, make-up free self inside and shutting the front door behind me. 'Huh?' came the confused, sleepy voice of hubby as my endorphin high woke him up from a (man-flu induced) nap.
"I had a good run," I said. "No, scratch that. I had a great run. First time in weeks that my legs didn't reject me from the second kilometer onwards. Even my chest behaved. Didn't have the urge to cough up a lung after only ten minutes of the new Black Eyed Peas album."
"That's nice, dear," he said *yawn* "Dya think you could pour me a glass of Oros. I'm sooooo *cough, cough, splutter* thirsty..."
Yip, my endorphin high was short-lived. From super proud of herself roadrunner to nurse/wife/nanny in less than two minutes. That's why I've turned into a tweeter ... you post a statement about running 10kms at sparrow fart and some stranger in Ontario, Canada pats you on the back from cyberspace and a handful of other people you hardly know congratulate you on your achievement, fire off *rounds of applause* and RT ('re-tweet' for you non-tweeters) you saying things like 'This chick's got rocks in her head'.
I'm not usually this needy. Really, a pat on the back from me to me usually does the trick... but in 11 days time I am gonna be lining up at a starting line in the Knysna forest. It'll be freezing cold and the sun won't even be up yet. I will be expected to run 21.1kms. My first ever half marathon. I need every bit of encouragement that I can get. Yip, that random tweeter may be right – I must have rocks in my head after all. It goes without saying that I'm trying to get as much training in, as responsibly, as I can. No point in over-training and buggering up my knee/ankle/tendon/leg muscle thingee... but then there's also no point in under-training and spending 21.1kms whingeing in a very un-ladylike fashion to my fabulous sister who is also running the silly distance with me.
The good runs, like today's, make me feel like I can do it and cross the finish line with a smile on my face. It's the good runs that keep me motivated and keep me in a warm, fuzzy state of just the right dose of denial. It's the bad runs, like last Thursday's 8km torture trail, that leave me with an icky queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach and a voice inside my head saying 'remind me again, how much crack were you smoking on the day that you signed up for an event with marathon in the title?'
So you see, today's run was well timed. Today's run was 12kms of pure bliss... my legs co-operated, my chest moved oxygen around my limbs like a finely oiled machine and I even found myself singing out loud, yes singing along to 'I gotta feeling' on the homestretch. So when tomorrows 5km hill training session has me swearing in eleven official languages I will cling to the feeling I had this morning. I will cling to it as tightly as I would a pair of Size 6 Jimmy Choo sandals on a 90% off sale rack... because, you see, I'd far rather be my own super perky cheerleader than critic.
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