Git your teeth and bare it

What is today, you ask? Today is the day of the weekly Fresh Pond 2.5 and 5-mile race.

It was cool and raining, perhaps a tad humid as well. But the fact that the race looped a pond (once for 2.5, twice for 5) and was under the cover of trees made the humidity bearable.

A beautiful race, certainly. But it is inevitable that one will one day have a bad run. One that makes you feel as if you shouldn’t be out there, that you suck or are too injured to continue. For me, it was the last.

My knees were pretty bad today, and I unfortunately let that get to me. I lost focus quickly on, but still managed to run the race at the right tempo, quite surprisingly. But, it hurt. And not just physically. If you loose focus in any run or start dwelling on something, it hurts mentally.

But we all must have these days, and we all will. There’s no avoiding them, you just have to grit your teeth and know that it will be over. It’s only a race, and it will end soon.

I would try to put in a peppy suggestion on how to conquer it, but the same thing doesn’t work for everyone. Replaying songs in my head that I’ve memorized sometimes works, but not always. Sometimes you just have to get through it.