I'm in Istanbul again, waiting to get on the plane back to Cairo- not something I'm looking forward to but I took tomorrow off so at least I have 3 days to recover before I have to go back to work.
Someone in the group brought some old (Spring/Summer 2008) running magazines to our last brunch and they'd been sitting on my night stand for a few weeks- I kept meaning to read them before I left, but things just kept getting in the way- I saw them when I was packing for this trip and threw them in my carry-on.
Anyway, I was reading one on the flight from Copenhagen and came across 2 interesting articles. The first is on the emotional side of racing (I can hear some of you rolling your eyes right now) and how to go about getting over a bad race- most of it is pretty obvious- take the positives, learn from it etc etc, but there are 3 steps they outlined that I like:
1) accept it 2) Understand it 3) Go forward.
I have been doing my best to do these 3 things and I think I'm between 2 and 3- I think I'll have to wait till I see what the situation is with my foot till I can fully plan how to go forward, but (mentally) I feel a lot better than I did a few days ago.
The other article is called 'Making friends with pain'- I wish I'd read this last week...they interview several pro runners and they had some pretty interesting things to say about how they deal with pain during races. One says "When I was training at my hardest, there were times it hurt so much I wanted a car to hit me". Another says she "stares at the runner in front of her and visualizes them pulling her along", Ryan Hall- one of the fastest marathon runners out there at the moment (also a deeply religious person) pictures Christ on the cross as inspiration. I'm not sure I'm going to try the latter but it does help me to know that even the fastest runners in the world experience pain sometimes and it is possible to overcome it.
It looks like I have to get to
the gate in a sec so I should go, but here is are a couple of self-photos from yesterday- we rented bikes and rode them to a little seaside village (I know it's bad, I'm not wearing a helmet- but Copenhagen is designed for bikes and the drivers are very courteous).Okay, hope you're all doing well!
xoxo C
1 comment:
Hi.. Just doing some catching up on my Blog reading well having a post tempo run snack.. so some of the pain you talk of was there in the forefront only a few minutes ago.. the thing that gets me though most of the time is the awesome ability of the body to go on in spite of the mental limits we put on our selves. and the fact that next weeks run will be just as painful but with even better results.
Hope your foot is feeling better.
Roy.
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