Hi Gang,

Hope you are well.  I am training for a 5K race in October (i.e. 3.2 miles).  I can already jog 7 miles without stopping so finishing isnt a problem...finishing WELL is.  I have no delusions about my speed.  I know I wont be winning any races. However, I do like to improvement in my fitness.  Otherwise, why go to the gym?

So there is this big bridge on the race course and I have been doing hill work once a week when my fiancee comes out. I have asthma, and am told to not run alone, so it is treadmilling during the week and one run on land (hill work) up and down a confederate earthwork fort to get my body adjusted to the steepness of the hills/bridge and what my body is going to have to do on race day.

So, sometimes I get a bad attitude about exercise. For example, Aunt Flo showed up, i was tired and it was icky humid out. I already decided this run was going to suck.  In fact, it was going to be the worse ever!!!

Then I started jogging and KNEW it was going to be bad.

Yet I kept going and kept pushing and even sometimes yelling at myself "Come, on Skinny!  Push!  Turn on the afterburners...move it!"

At the end of my 3.2k, I went up to my fiancees chair (He reads the paper while I run around up and down this fort and all over the plantation).  He goes, "Done already?"  

I look down at my watch. I did the 3.2 K (with 3 trips up and down that fort) in 45 minutes!  Last week, on the same route, I did the course in 52 minutes.  This was an improvement of 7 minutes in one week!

It is also better than the race time of my first 5K race when I was around 26-28.  I came in at 48 minutes.

So, I guess the moral of the story is...what we are feeling (attitudes) are just that. Feelings. They might not be reality. Feelings can change from minute it to minute and the feeling I had a minute ago does not have to affect my present nor my future especially when they are deterimental to my overall plan (e.g. a healthy heart, finishing my first out of a retirement 5K charity race well).

Thanks for reading.

-Skinnier and maybe a bit faster Scientist

Awesome!!  Eventually, I would love to get into running.. my goal for next summer is to do some 5K's. I have never ran in one.   

Too cool!! Sometimes implementing a good dose of SIUBC really gets you thru! (Suck It Up, ButterCup!)