I was talking to a friend today about mental barriers and breaking them. She was explaining that once she got past the mental part...the mental you...that little part saying that's it, that's far enough, that's enough "pain", she was able to over double her distance.
This is her original quote, "I remember a long while back i was saying i was physically unable to run more than 2 miles my whole life and you convinced me it was a mental block and I believed you and you were right! I am up to running 5 miles with not being tired after."
I've been in that exact situation so many times, on so many different things, and it still bugs me a lot...that's why if you know me, you know I will start a lot of projects and follow through with very few of them. I remember back when I first started exercising, I would go out and try and run a mile...then 2, then 3. I never got beyond 3. I thought my limit was 3 miles and I would be doomed to running 3 miles in about 30 minutes. I limited my runs to 3 miles for over a year. Coming from my background, I was happy about that progress though.
One day I went out and tried to do 4...the next time was 5...then 6 (that was about as far as I could go at the time), but I felt great and more importantly IT felt great. I got over that "wall," that mental block...that little voice saying, "ok we're done here."
With that said, I had to get over it again this past weekend and will again next weekend. Last weekend I ran 17 miles in about 3:00. That is my longest run by just about 3.5 miles and it was hard. It hurt, I wanted to stop, and it was amazing. Next weekend I want to step it up a bit and go for 20...and we'll see how it goes.
Here's a little motivation I like to use...
Edit: That message was originally from the TCU Baseball campaign, I just liked that video better...
No comments:
Post a Comment