Stuck In a Rut....Maybe

So yesterday was supposed to be an easy 7 mile run for the group, but I found myself struggling. I had a terrible side stitch which I would say was with me for about the first 3-4 miles of our run. I believe it was from dehydration. I did drink 2 beers the night before and I also had some bathroom issues in the morning. I believe the combination caused me to be dehydrated and having some of the most painful side pains of my life. Every time we came to a stop light, I had my hand jabbed into my side and I was bent over. This helped to clear up the pain for about 2 minutes at a time. Eventually the pain subsided-thank goodness!

Anyways, this then became a mental game of yelling at myself for drinking the beer, then it went into telling myself I'm not running enough and should be logging more miles. Of course, this spiral continued for the whole 7 miles of me complaining to myself in my head about all the different things I was doing wrong.

WOMP WOMP....

I talked about this a few weeks ago, but the negative self talk has really been causing a rut that I'm trying to climb out of. I started out this journey so confident, coming off a large weight loss and knowing that I was going to accomplish my goals. Now it's turned into comparing myself against other people and what they are doing and telling myself I'm not doing enough. I feel like I go back and forth from day to day or week to week on feeling good about what I'm doing and being disappointed in myself for not doing more. On the outside, people would never guess that I struggle this much with confidence. I'm not sure where the disconnect comes from because there's this Lauren that can literally talk and make conversation with anybody, get up in front of a room full of people and present, sing terribly at karaoke in a crowded bar, and white girl dance like nobody is watching. Then there's another Lauren that is constantly doubting her abilities. I think it may be because tapping into the world of health and fitness is pretty new territory and I'm still trying to gain a level of comfort.

Thursday, I started with a personal trainer. It was an extremely difficult hour of weight lifting, but I like that she doesn't take excuses and pushes me to my limits. She had me make a goal card for myself, then she had me make another card that she called the "WHY" card. I was writing down reasons I wanted to do all of this. At the very end, I wrote "BECAUSE I CAN" per her request. This is the attitude that I really want to try and concentrate on for the remaining weeks of my training.

So this week I'm going to really make a conscious decision to change my attitude to an attitude of BECAUSE I CAN. Every time a negative thought pops into my head, I'm going to replace it with this phrase. I'm going to work hard this week. I have an 11 mile run coming up that will be my new PR and I personally want to kill it. This week, I won't focus on the Pig ahead or the rough runs behind me. I'm going to focus on just this week and this Saturday and tackle each day to the best of my ablilites, both physically and mentally. Wish me luck!

Saturday brought rain. If your shoes get wet, take the inside part out and stuff the inside of the shoes with newspapers (which I never have) or paper towels. Never dry your shoes in the dryer.