Mind Games

In five weeks, I will be limping around a little, my legs burning with that familiar discomfort signaling that I pushed them a little further than they wanted to take me.

In five weeks, I will eat my favorite, calorie-laden Mexican dinner, trying my hardest to save room for ice cream, without guilt.

In five weeks, I will have crossed the finish line of my fourth half-marathon.

My legs have carried my body thirteen point one miles three other times, and each race has been uniquely challenging.

My mantra for each race has been “trust your training,” knowing that I had put in the training mileage, readied my body, no matter how painful it may have seemed during some of my runs.

Twinges in my left knee annoyed me while training for my first, later becoming painful enough to rely on a knee brace.

“Trust your training.”

I had to slow to a walk a few times, stretching my painful knee on the side of road and using the encouraging words of other runners to keep running, but my training carried me over the finish line.

My second was nine months after having Dylan.  Training runs meant rushing from the house after nursing, rushing back home, training myself to mother two children while coaxing my body back from pregnancy.

“Trust your training.”

I remembered that the underground tunnel connecting Windsor and Detroit would require a particularly motivating tune, so Kid Rock welcomed me back to Detroit with “Bawitaba”.  My training powered me through the last hill, somehow keeping the foot cramps from stopping the familiar left, right, left of my legs.

This winter drove me onto the treadmill, out of the cold and snow that freeze my motivation.

“Trust your training.”

I ran my best time of the three races.

Leaving that race, optimistic new goals bubbled into my consciousness.  My secret mental chalkboard blazed a new number.  I added a little speed work to my training plan.

Then I faltered.

Writing projects and active children compete with running on my priority list.

I missed some speed work, which doesn’t worry me.  I missed some long runs, which does.  My ambitious goal time is fading, slipping from my grasp.

There is still time to train, a few more long runs to spark my legs into remembering what I expect them to do when I lace up my shoes that morning to watch the sun rise over the Ambassador Bridge, concentrating on my pounding feet so that I don’t look down the impossible distance to the water.

I have vocally declared running a mental sport, explaining how my stubbornness helps me overcome my lack of natural ease in running.  Yet, trusting in my training means depending on my physical preparation.

“Trust your training” loses its power when I've fumbled in my training.

This time, I have a new mantra.

“Trust yourself.”

This is our very last week to make an impact for Be Enough Me 4 Cancer. Last week we had 45 people link up an enough-themed post in our Be Enough Me for Cancer campaign and I’d love it if you’d help us boost that number again. For every 20 linked up posts, Bellflower Books will provide a memory book to a woman fighting breast cancer through Crickett’s Answer for Cancer, and help bring a smile to courageous women giving it their all, every single day. The link-up remains open for three days. No blog? No worries. You can also comment on the post or on the Just.Be.Enough. Facebook page with your own story and be counted.


Even with the Be Enough Me 4 Cancer campaign drawing to a close, please continue to share your Be Enough Me stories on Mondays at Just Be Enough!  We will still be linking up every Monday and would still love to hear how YOU lived the Be Enough Me feeling each week.  Be part of carrying the weight of confidence, empowerment and share our mission to empower, inspire, and remind women, parents and children that the time has come to celebrate ourselves!