Small expectations

A couple of months ago I vowed, even on this blog, to run every day at least 10 km. That soon became impossible because I had to climb 3/7 days, and do tutorials 1/7 days, and then i was shacked and dead-ish. So I soon lowered the limit to 5 km/day. Except one day in the weekends, which I designed to be my "free" day. Oh how i imagined I would put my feet up and read and relax on that free day - this of course didn't happen because we started climbing on Sunday (my free day) as well.

A month or so after setting the lowish 5km limit, things started to rapidly deteriorate. I would run 4, 4.6, hell even 3km routes, without feeling much guilt because 5-4.6 = 0.4 so it wasn't such a big deal. I suppose this lead to a decrease in form, both physical and mental. Pretty soon after this, even full fledged 5 km started to feel like I was running at least 2 marathons. Uphill!

So here was I former long distance runner extraordinaire, being bored/apprehensive/cautious, about five measly km runs. To say nothing that I really did not phantom that I could ever run 10 km again. It is amazing how fast we forget how good we were at something. Last week, when I had to run longer distances on more than one occasion (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday) I actually felt that I would not be able to do it and! started making excuses even before the run started.

I guess I am my worst enemy when it comes to selling myself short or telling myself that I can't do something. This pops up in climbing as well, where my negative talk is the most effective talk ever. I am scared that it has started to pop up in other areas as well, especially now since the last part of the thesis left to be written is the contributions section.

So for this week I am planning longer runs to boost the confidence. However, I am still pondering possible solutions for selling myself short/talking myself down lifewise: loud music, ice-cream, chips! anyone?