I started my new training plan today.  It called for a timed mile in the middle of the workout.  I’ve done several times miles in the past.  But, I am happy to say, my mile PR was during a race. I was oddly nervous to run the mile.  And I am not sure why.  No one was watching me.  In fact, I was the only person at the track.  Only my running coach will know the time.  It wouldn’t be public information.   So, why was I nervous?  Even while running the warm up mile, I could feel the nerves.  As I was about to start the timed mile, I even got that nervous “I need to pee” feeling.  Anyone else get that when they are nervous?  So, I completed the mile doing my run/walk intervals. 

 I turned on my Power Songs playlist to help distract the negative thoughts in my mind.  Those thoughts can seem so loud at times, it becomes nearly impossible to drown them out.  Those thoughts that you would never say out loud or towards anyone else.  You aren’t good enough.  You are so slow.  You deserve to be this slow. I could go on, and I know I do in my mind.  The good thing is the Power Songs helped.  At one point, I tried to sing along with Kanye West’s Power and then quickly reminded myself that if I can sing then I am not going hard enough.  I finished the mile having used almost all my energy. 

 I didn’t look at my time because my watch had already moved on to the next portion of the workout.  I switched the playlist to my normal running playlist and started another lap.  The first song was Imagine Dragon’s On Top Of The World. All workouts should finish with this song. It helped me get over how tired I was and reminded me that I just pushed myself harder than I had in a while.  I was feeling great about it…until I got in the car, synced my watch and saw the mile time.

It's hard not to compare yourself to where you used to be.  I was upset when I saw the time.  It was no where near my PR and no where near what I could run a couple years ago.  I felt like I had failed.  I gave it everything I had, but it wasn't good enough for me.  I wanted to run it again just to prove to myself that I could be faster.  But, I knew it wouldn't be a good idea to try again.  I had already used all of my energy.  And, how would I feel if I came in slower?  I drove home feeling defeated.  I took a shower and ate lunch.  The entire time I was in a foul mood.  Luckily, time helped to change my mood. I started to think about all the changes I've gone through in the past couple years and why my time was understandably slower.  I'm not the same person I was several years ago and that is a major factor in my time.  Also, the good thing is that I can change my time.  This timed mile was done without much training. If I work at it consistently, I should be able to improve the time by a little bit.  I'm not where I was, and the timed mile was just a reminder of that.  But, it was only one workout.  I can change it by working every day.