Since then, running has been a little hit and miss for me. I enjoy it immensely, but it is so easy to make excuses for not taking that first step out my door. It’s too cold, it’s too hot, I’m too tired, I don’t have enough time, I don’t feel well, I didn’t sleep well last night, I need to work. I’m reading a new book. I would be more committed if I were training for an actual event. I could see that I had fallen into a familiar old rut. While my mind churned out excuse after excuse, the authentic me knew they were nothing but B.S. There’s no other way to say it.

I had choices, as we all do from a place of awareness. I was allowing my excuses and justifications to run my life. I was not in charge, a stubborn 15 year old was wielding all the power and I was just trying not to beat myself up about it. I wasn’t doing too well at that. Truth be told, I felt like a loser that I had trained my body to run for five hours at a time only to slide down to the level where pulling out three miles was a real challenge. I remember when it took a good three or four miles for me to even warm up when I was logging 45 miles a week.

When I trained for the marathon, I never ran with ear buds. It was strictly my body, my mind and the road. One of my daughters who ran distance in high school and college warned me that some events won’t allow ear buds and even if they did, I shouldn’t train with them because I would be at a real psychological disadvantage if the battery went dead on my MP3 player mid event and I had never learned the mental fortitude to keep going. She was right and I really leaned on my internal resources April 29, 2007.

Then one weekend not so many weeks ago, I got into a really good book, you know the kind that you just can’t put down? So, I basically sat in a chair all weekend and read that book, cover to cover. On reflection, I thought about how much I enjoyed the story, but how unproductive I felt. Then it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. I could download audible versions of books I want to read onto my MP3 player and listen to them while I run! I made the rule that I can only listen to the book while I am running. So, when I can’t bear to wait for the next page or chapter, I have to get my shoes on and hit the road. Brilliant!

I have faithfully logged an average of 12 miles a week since I began this “run and read” program and have even gotten my distance back to 8 miles and climbing. I have really improved how I feel, dropped a few pounds and read a few books I’ve been dying to read.

The real struggle for me here was to resist my temptation to go all the way down the “yellow brick road of beating myself up” because of my lack of motivation. In awareness, I was able to see the pattern and find another way to honor myself enough to take the hardest step in any fitness program, the first step out the door.