Run Slow...

I have noticed that my blog has become less of blog and more of a photography sharing.  Although this meets part of my creativity, I also started this blog as a means to share thoughts and my journey in different areas of my life.  With this in mind, I am shifting my blog today with only one image and many thoughts.  

For my birthday this year, I was sent a gift in the mail from a dear friend.  Birthdays for me are days like any other and I don't like to stand on ceremony for them nor do I like to draw too much attention.  I don't indulge in birthday weeks or want anything more then a nice dinner, glass of wine and a night off. I relish in the simple pleasures of spending time reflecting on how I have spent my time.

This year, as mentioned, I received in the mail a book. It wasn't expected and was very much a surprise.  Probably one of the most surprising birthdays I have had simply for that reason.  This friend is  someone I connected with through running. Typically, I am a lone wolf in terms of running.  If asked ,I will often say that I love running for the time it gives me to be alone with me, my thoughts and my intentions.  However, in my journey through running, I have been connected with some amazing people.  Leanne is one such of these people.  To be fair, we both met through dance but later in life, when Leanne became my dance teacher, we discussed running and simply began to run together.  
I am not sure if she is even aware of really how special this is for me as I don't run with many people. It isn't that I don't want to, it is more like mentioned above, that my time is small and often complicated to fit a run in.  Simply put, it has always seemed to work when we run, no effort needed.  

That being said, we have many talks, questions, ideas of running along the way.  This is where this book comes into play.  This year has been a tough year for my running.  You see, I am at heart a very competitive person.  Running has satisfied this beast as the faster I ran, the faster I raced... to a point.  I trained fast and felt that doing this was good, I mean it makes sense, if I run fast in training I will faster when I race.  This theory began to break down in the early new year.  I found that my shins were giving out, then my runs became harder and then when I was finally without shin pain, the accident stopped me and my partner right in our tracks.  

When I was able to run again, the runs were hard, really hard. Harder then I remember when I first started to run.  This didn't make sense to me, I had tried to continue with my running program as best I could, using the elliptical, biking, nothing seemed to have made a difference.

This weekend, Leanne was back in town, and we went for a run.  I felt like I would and was holding her back.  I was making excuses, trying to justify my pace and thats when Leanne mentioned the book 80/20 RUNNING by Matt Fitzgerald that she had sent me.  I had to be honest and say I hadn't read it yet.  The more she spoke about her own personal experience about slowing down, and me knowing how she had been doing at races (which is fantastic by the way) the more I know I had to listen. 

Today I made time to pick up the book on my off day.  What I have read so far is slow run is even slower then what you think and the first order of business is to take a week of slow.  Luckily, I have a training program so slow it is for this week.  

I am going to blog this process to see where it takes me not only physically but mentally.  I struggle with pace and go faster then I need to, I know this, but what happens when I call myself on it, what happens when I intentionally make a change.  We will see and really I have nothing to loose. 

#running #thejourney #goodpeoplerun