Normally I would have given you the finger

When I was on my 10 minute drive to the Greenway this morning, my thoughts were in a terrible funk.  I was contemplating how I could write a blog about my failures in life that didn't make me sound like a whiny brat.  We all face tremendous hurdles in life--loss, illness, injury, heartache, financial issues, family issues, etc.  I was in a particular funk about work and annoyed about the poor choices I made 10 years ago.  I feel as though I haven't figured out what I want to be when I grow up and it really wears on me that I feel like I should be doing bigger and better things.

But then I went for a run and everything was put into perspective.

I realized that I should stop being so focused on 'what-could-have-been' and focus on 'enjoy-the-moment'.  I spend way too much time thinking about the past or the future, but so little time stopping to appreciate all the awesome I have in my life.  I get so envious (shoot me, I'm human) of things that I don't have and yet, I have so much to appreciate.  No one has the perfect life and if they did, it would so ridiculously boring. 

So for this moment in time, I will stop wishing

-To have a few more square feet of house and be thankful that I don't have any more inches to vacuum, mop, dust, declutter.

-To have a normal 9-5, M-F work schedule and be thankful that I can gallivant through the woods on a random Wednesday.  Plus, I'm employed.  I really should shut my mouth.

-To be a faster runner and be thankful that I able and capable of training for my 5th marathon.

-To have less cellulite and be thankful that I never have to worry about where my next meal is coming from.

-To have dogs that behaved properly and be thankful that those clowns make me laugh every day.

-To stop sofa surfing with Adam every night and be thankful that we get to spend a few happy hours in each other's company every night.

-To have a less dysfunctional family and be thankful that my brother, sister, and I have a good enough relationship in our late 20's/early 30's to vacation together every year.

There are so many more examples, but I think I've made my point.  What really set this off was the black cloud of lingering injury that had been following me around for about 2 weeks.  I have a really sore left shin and I was getting very afraid that I was going to completely choke on this training run.  This fear of failure was intensified by the very real possibility that my big training run was going to go terribly and/or DNF.  I taped my leg up, took 2 aspirin (I'm pretty sure this is no-no), and went out easy.

I don't think that I've ever had a 20 miler that started out 'eh' and ended with euphoria.  I just kept feeling better with every mile.  The weather was perfect, my pace felt very comfortable, I was listening to Pandora's hip-hop/pop fitness station, and trying to smile the biggest goofball grin at the very few people on the Greenway on a Wednesday morning.  Today was definitely a day I needed to get honked and hollered at when I crossed the intersection...thank you, random stranger.  Normally I would have given you the finger, but today I just waved wildly.

I'm not sure what race day will be like with this shin, but I have some new found confidence after today.  Here are the splits: 8:33, 8:27, 8:24, 8:20, 8:26, 8:28, 8:22, 8:31, 8:30, 8:23, 8:15, 8:19, 8:21, 8:18, 8:11, 8:15, 8:11, 8:10, 8:06, 7:47.