How I see myself

THIS IS HOW I SEE MYSELF.

Of course, I'm quite convinced now that this is not what I look like....anymore. but I just cant shake the self image I have. It dosnt seem to matter what I achieve, or acomplish in running or life. 

For example. Saturday I ran a 1/2 marathon in the fastest time I have ever done. 1 Hour 59 Minutes and 44 seconds. Looking back at past posts I had 3 goals. 1) Sub 2 hour 1/2 marathon, 2) Sub 50 min 10k and to complete my second full marathon. This means that I achieved one of my goals last Saturday. On arriving home. my daughter had her running shoes on, and said with the cutest possible look on her little face "Daddy take me running" So off to the park for a quick jog with her we all went....It was very cute, and I in no way want to dampen the fires of enthusiasm my children are harboring for running.

Sunday, Mothers day, and more important the family run, which is all my son has talked about for weeks. 4k's round the tan, with the push chair for when the kids little legs need some help....no worries. Now my training of late, has involved a 10k run during lunch time at work twice a week, and then a longer run on the weekends (puffing billy, Run for the kids etc) so a 4k is not really anything for me to get worried about.,....well...let me say the anderson st hill, double push chair, and 25kg of kids strapped in....it had me working my ass off. But it was well worth it, we all finished the run as a family sweaty and proud of what we had done.

Then today, I was "needing" to run again. (more on this later) so 10k at lunch, it was cold, but dry, and I was on fire. It felt so good to be out there in the open, and at the end of the run, I had been running for an amazing 51 minutes and 53 seconds. Now, after a couple of weeks of 10k runs, I would say my average time for 10k is 55 mins give or take. So to complete this about 3 minutes faster than I expected was an amazing achievement.

Thats 35k in the last 4 days and yet I still see myself as the above picture. If I attempted what i have just achieved looking like that I would be a) unable to walk. b) in a coma, and or c)very dead.

Last week was hard. I had puffing billy run on the Sunday, then a week of training. Training mentally is great. Physically it sucks the big one. I stand at my desk at work (which is a point of amusement for everyone that walks past me ;) so being stuck in a room where its not practical to do anything but sit on the second most un-ergonomic chairs I have ever seen really gets my annoyance factor up.

Second to this, my wife had arrangements/commitments on the nights that I would usually run...actually she had something on every night that week, so running at night was out. After the bastard hills of puffing billy I decided a week of non-running wouldn't be too bad anyway, bit of recovery and all that. By the Thursday the physical symptoms were very obvious.....I couldn't stand still. My leg was shaking with a nervous twitch, I was on edge, anxious and not coping at all with not running. I did something late in the week which maybe says a little about the kind of person I am. 

The course that I was on, had an exam associated with it, and I booked the exam for the Friday afternoon. This seemed like a really good idea at the time, it would be fresh in my mind and all good. What actually happened was that my non-running symptoms, combined with the non-running anxiety, and the OMFG I have an exam that if I fail would be throwing away $200 anxiety. I was a mess, on the way there I was sub consciously looking for any excuse to run, oh that light is green better run, oh the tram is not there, better run,,,,etc.

Anyway I passed the exam and all was well, but it would have been much better had I been able to leverage off the quiet calm of a post run mind.

so back to my original point. Run for the kids, puffing billy, my 1/2 marathon training run, mothers day classic, and my amazing 10k time today were done by this guy:

A runner, a dad. a husband, and a much healthier man than the butterball at the top of the post!

Daniel