Self Pity Stew

This has been my week:

Not a shred of stupid optimism, annoying positive attitude, or grating self-motivated pep to be found. And not a hint of training. There was some guilt at first, but by midweek, I had moved beyond feeling bad about not doing anything that even remotely resembled training. I sank nice and heavy into a sticky stew of cold-hearted self pity generously garnished with apathy. And then I floated around in it, relished it, let it seep between my toes, gargled its cloying juices, rubbed it into my face.

I wallowed.

It felt like something in me had completely shut off. Instead of a burning drive to reach a big goal, all I had was a burning drive to eat fries and watch Jessica Jones whose nihilistic world view spoke to me.

My weak little plan was to start fresh on The Weekend. The Weekend is a magical place where everything is possible, where the week's sins are forgiven, and rebirth can be achieved. I didn't do anything this week. It's okay! I'll just jumpstart myself on The Weekend, and launch a whole new life! Reality has yet to bear this out. Reality is so lame.

Thankfully, my dad texted me on Friday night: "Run tmrw?" It was the external force I needed. Without that external force, I would have planned on doing a training run, slept in late on Saturday morning,  eaten a leisurely breakfast, read my book for a while, done some mindless internet browsing, watched some Jessica Jones, read some more, eaten lunch, realized it was late enough in the afternoon that I would be running in the dark, and excused myself from running on the grounds of personal safety. Maybe next weekend.

With Dad, it's up and out by 8am. (He wanted 7:30, I negotiated half an hour, which resulted in us still being out running while it rained its hardest the last half hour of our run. Sorry, Dad.)

Much to my delight, and despite not training for a week, I have not lost every strand of muscle fiber in my legs and gained 150 pounds. My bad mind was wrong. It was a great 10-miler. We ran it in the same time that I ran 8 miles last weekend. It made me feel like a runner again.

I have no idea how to not wallow this week. I have no idea how to carry the good juju from this run beyond The Weekend. But right now, I feel worthy of the moniker "Runner," so I'm going to mentally tattoo that identity to my soul, maybe write it in Sharpie on my hand, and do my best to be the thing I am.