Deciding Again

I started training for a 10k about a week and a half ago. For those who have known me for longer than two years, you probably recall my making snide remarks about the pointlessness of running when no one is chasing. But as I have with so many other things I used to disdain, I've decided to give running a good hard go. And believe me, it has been hard.

Runners always talk about pushing through the wall and hitting a spot where you feel amazing, where you could keep going forever. I have never gotten there. Perhaps I simply haven't run far or long enough yet. But I suspect that running will never be that endorphine-inducing, euphoria-driven experience for me. When it comes down to it, I simply don't like to run. And I spend most of my time on the treadmill trying to distract my mind from the fact that I'm running, trying to avoid looking at the clock because I know it's only been ten seconds since I last looked, trying to convince myself that I won't actually die.

Even though I tell myself at the outset of any run that I will for go x minutes or y miles, that goal, that pre-decision is not enough to keep me moving forward. Every step is a deliberation, every second is a battle with the desire to stop. I choose hundreds of times each mile that I will complete the mile, and each time it is a real choice, it is an act of will. One would think that making this decision dozens and dozens of times would eventually make the choice easier. I think it's more like flipping a coin: no matter how many times I've already tossed it, and no matter how many times it's come up tails, the probability of it coming up tails in the next toss is still only 50%.

These odds aren't the greatest, but that's okay. As someone for whom too much has come easily, I have tremendous admiration for those whose achievements come through struggle. I think they deserve much more credit than I do, and I'd like to learn to emulate them in any way I can.

So like I said, I don't anticipate this becoming any easier. However, I do anticipate continuing to decide again. And again. And again. I think the discipline of this -- of deciding moment by moment to do what's hard, of choosing time after time the choices that I've already made -- is good for my soul as well as my legs.