The Power of Perception

Hi Delicious-

Every Sunday I put my running shoes on and I head down "the New 17".  It's this new stretch of 4-lane highway that is rarely travelled and has great big shoulders.  There's no cross traffic, there's hardly anyone else ever out there, I can run right from my house and it's become mine.  Who needs a gym when I have 3.5 miles each way of unspoiled pavement with a scenic view of rolling hills and trees and creeks?  There are little turn offs that go back into the neighborhoods if I don't want to do all 7 miles or I can simply turn back early, I know all my self-appointed mile markers by heart now.  The thing with this route is that it's about 40% downhill, 10% even running and I'd say about 50% uphill (since I usually turn around and go back the way I came on the other side of the highway).  So during the week I don't usually do my hill training, I figure I get it all in every time I run my road. 

Ever since I've gotten my new shoes which are literally bigger (a whole size so as not to have toe-holes anymore) I feel like I'm working harder.  I know it will just take some getting used to and be much better for my shins and everywhere else.  But for the last two Sundays the up-hills have taken some extra umph.  & I realized as I was doing my maintenance 7 miles this Sunday morning that I spend a good deal of my time running kind of tricking myself.  Not lying, per se...just altering my reality a bit to help me get through the harder parts. 

I'm wondering if I'm the only one who pulls her hat down so I can't see that ginormous incline coming up and looks down at my feet which always look the same whichever way I'm running. I realized that, for me, running is a lot about perception.  At first it was the perception of whether or not I could train myself to run for 13 miles at a time.  Each week was a further test of just how many miles my body would go before it said, "no more!"  & all the while I'm feeding my brain false information:  it's only 5 more songs till we're done sounds better than 15 more minutes.  When I'm forced onto the treadmill of boringness, I have to cover the time otherwise a mile seems like an eternity.  As I ran the last leg of my 7 miles I figured that it's not my body I've got to coax into finishing (or actually starting seems to be the harder part).  My body's fine...it gets me there every time. Sometimes I look up and have gone way farther than I even realized.  It's my mind that's not nearly as strong.  It's my mind that I have to ply with illusions and perceptions to forge ahead and maybe running is just as much mental as it is physical. 

When I came home and was emptying out my Fuel Belt, I remembered that I had automatically picked up a penny I had seen during one of the inclines while I was staring at my feet and I laughed.  I picked it up because it had been face up.  And I passed another by because it was on tails.  Perception is a funny thing.