There are many great things about this blog for me.  Not only does it force me to do some sort of workout everyday so I have something to write about, but it also makes me think through my workouts, for good or for ill, to figure out what to write about.

Damn you water fountain!

Today I did a longish run (11.2 miles in about 1:30) along the Rock Creek Trail in Bethesda, MD.  As I was plodding along thinking about what to write for this post, I decided to go with something we have to do in medical school (another sign that school is taking over my life): analyze our feelings and context...so here goes.  I felt GREAT for the first 50 minutes.  The weather was great, it was sunny, I had some sweet tunes queued up on my Ipod, I was holding a good pace, all was good in the world.  Around 37 minutes I passed a water fountain along the trail, but alas it did not work.  At this point in my run it didn't bother me, but in about 20 minutes it would make me SO annoyed.  Around 50 minutes, I hit a sort of wall.  My pace slowed way down and I could feel myself getting a blister.  The run was no longer feeling that great and I was definitely feeling annoyed about my lack of physical fitness.  The peak of my irritation was when I passed that same water fountain 20 minutes later, but this time I was extremely thirsty and it was just sitting there...not working...taunting me!  At this point I was about 1:10 into the run.  It was time to make a decision.  Was I really going to waste energy being annoyed for the rest of my run?  Or was I going to suck it up and push through?

Well, I distinctly remember thinking the IronMan is 80 bigillion times longer than my run, so I better start learning to suck it up and be positive.  As a result, the last 20 minutes was similar to my first 50, minus the fast pace.  I'm not sure whether my happier attitude was because I was on the home stretch or because of my mid-run attitude adjustment, but I suppose having a good end to my run is all that really matters.  Overall, what I really took out of this run, besides the physical exercise, was that I can't let a slower pace or non functioning water fountains get me down!  Better to just stay positive and push through those hard parts in the runs, as I'm sure there will be many more.

As I'm writing this post I'm a little giggly because we have to write very similar essays to this quite frequently in medical school.  Somehow writing those just aren't as fun...My professor for that class, Dr. Auster, would be proud.