Friday, September 26, 2008

Head, body, mind, soul, spirit, running, dry air…

As I am still continuing on my training for the marathon, it’s about three weeks left. So far, I felt ok. I felt my training had gone pretty good and well. Some are as expected, others not so, yet surprising. And, some are even great surprises. Some stuffs that I realized and fuel me to keep going and striving for the better, in terms of training, racing and especially life.
This week is supposed to be the biggest week of my marathon training, in terms of mileage that I have to cover. And, yesterday was probably the longest mid-week run that I did for this year. On the run out of the park, I felt good. I was able to keep the pace that I wanted to start the run, and that would probably be the pace that I will be doing in the race. Along the run, I met one my teammates. I was running all the way to the university. Man… that was packed. A lot more students than I usually run into. None of them I know tho.
The, it was time for me to turned around to go back to the park; I started to felt the dry air. My lips started to not feeling comfortable at all, which is for me, it’s a sign of ‘I need some liquid/water/orange juice, or any kind of hydration’. But in this case, obviously, I did not bring any hydration with me, because I never bring any on my mid week run. My philosophy has always been to bring hydration during weekend long run. At about half way for me to get to the park, I started feeling a little bit weak, but I know I can still run all the way back to the park. But then, by about 1.5 to two miles from the park, I realized my mind is playing ‘tricks’ in my head to my body. Somehow I felt that my body is saying, ‘please stop, just walk. Didn’t u feel the pain in ur body, leg and feet?’ But my head and myself kept saying, ‘come on, let’s go, u can do this. U can keep running.’ To my surprise, I realized at the time being, my pace was actually faster than I thought I was in. The pace was faster than my first mile. The pace is still even faster than the mid mile that I was in.
I got to the park just as the dark was about to set in. There were still people running around the park, probably enjoying the weather, although not sure how u can enjoy the dry air. Maybe it was the not so cold nite yet. Oh well… can really understand people’s mind tho.
When I got home, I started thinking about the so many things that happen on my run. I realized even more about the importance of having ur spirit, mind, soul, and body in one set. Many times, we, as human beings, have our spirit, head, mind, and body in different settings. For instance, our body may be at work, but our mind is thinking about some vacation spot. Then, our spirit is thinking about something else. I guess that’s why people like to say to one another, ‘focus, man… focus…’, ‘keep ur head in the game…’ Even on the run, ur body, leg, and feet could be actually running, but ur mind could be thinking about something else. U could be thinking about what u want to do after the run, what u want to eat afterwards. Especially with the surroundings that u r in, u could be distracted by a passer by, by a cute chick that u just passed, by a smell of some bbq, or maybe even a smell of sludge, hahhaaha…..j/k, but yet it is possible. And, also a dry air did not really help either.
All rite, enough for the day. I’ll try to continue on after another ‘long’ run on Saturday.

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