beating a dead horse

I finally completed day 1 of week 6 in my couch to 10 K program. I had to repeat it three times before I made my way through the whole thing. A 5 minutes warm up, then run 3 minutes, and walk 2 minutes - repeat that 13 times, then a 5 minute cool down. That's a total of 73 minutes. it's the longest workout in the program and I had been dreading it the entire time.

With that 73 minutes I logged 5 miles. A few others things happened too.

I got my "in the zone gaze" down again. I explain it like this. Some people while in a desert hallucinate that they see water. I have a running image. I pick a focal point and I place that image there. I end up having tunnel vision and I don't see anything else. I keep my head up and my focus right on that point. Then I think about what that image means to me. It's validation, it's strength, it's knowing that someone believes in me.

I also felt the affect of forefoot running. I felt like I was going to fall over all the time but I didn't. When I trusted it, running felt easier. I was astonished on how after 5 miles my legs did not feel like lead. It was awesome.

I had a new play list too. I worked on downloading everything (cheaper than the itunes play list) of a 2.8 hour long play list where the songs were from 140 BPM to 180 BPM.

All of these things are great and I should feel a sense of accomplishment and I do. Yet, I couldn't get motivated to run yesterday. I also felt really fat yesterday even though my jeans were falling off of me. Mostly, I feel fat when I don't like myself. When I get angry at the decisions I make. Food can sometimes become a punishment. I ate a huge meal at 3pm and I didn't eat again until 9:30 at night and it was ice cream (which the being in the company of my favorite band made it totally worth it)

I knew what I wanted to do yesterday and I compromised again.  I wanted a small lunch, to run my run, and then to go up to see Wildwoodstock. I worked a conference over the weekend too, so I don't feel like I had any down time. I went from work conference on Friday to running, to dinner & sleeping at my friends house. Work conference Saturday, to an hour nap, to dinner & friends birthday, to being hungover, to lunch with my brother, to Wildwoodstock, to Stewarts, to Rotterdam. I want to get away and I really don't have the free time to do it, as the next three weekends are booked.

I'm hoping that I get some breakthrough, some thing that shakes me out of this funk that I am in. I shouldn't be sad and I am sad. I just play the part of not being sad really well. November is my season for SAD not May. It is bothering me that I feel no control over my emotions. It's another hope that as I put my first race bib on for the season that I'll get excited and that excitement will carry me from month to month, that I just need a little reminder on why I run.