I ran the San Diego Blood Bank 5K this morning.

It wasn’t for the time. I had forgotten my watch.

It wasn’t for the glory. I got a t-shirt, which is awesome, but nothing new.

It was for myself.

I have been in quite a funk for the last two weeks. The first excuse was that it was my birthday. The second was that it was the Fourth of July. The third was that A Merry Life was going to be in LA, my friend was throwing a surprise party, and I had a barbeque to go to.

Plenty of processed foods with little to no nutritional value. Plenty of mindless eating, of shoving my face for pure indulgence. There was no self-control, no discipline. There was no eating with a purpose. There was just eating for pleasure. A little TOO much pleasure.

I haven’t trained in over a week. The last time I ran, I ran my fastest 5K ever. But that was two weeks ago.

Today, I went out there to just finish the race. I needed to prove to myself that I could still do it. I needed to re-discover the joys of running. I needed to push through the pain in order to realize that this is all worth it. I needed to end this funk and prevent two weeks from turning into two months.

I needed to stop making excuses and quit being a whining brat.

The first mile flew by pretty quickly. I went through three songs, so roughly a 9:30 mile. But right after mile one, I felt like dying.

I wanted to puke. I couldn’t focus on my breathing. I couldn’t find a rhythm. My legs felt like lead. I kept thinking about how out of shape I was. I kept thinking about how I had sabotaged myself. I kept thinking about my failures and how I would re-gain all my weight. All I wanted to do was stop and walk.

But I didn’t.

I needed to finish this race strong. I needed to find my self-discipline again. I needed to just do it.

By mile two, I found my groove. I settled into a consistent pace, but I was still feeling the after-effects of a weekend filled with too much booze and too little sleep.

For the first time ever, I experienced how eating like crap makes you run like crap. If you only give your body crap, it’ll only have sub-par resources to utilize.

When I finally saw the mile three marker, I picked up the pace. My family was waiting at the finish line. My dad, my mom, my aunt. This was also my first race running with a friend. Even though we finished at different times, I am super glad I got to experience a race with somebody else.

I gave it my all and sprinted to the finish line.

I have no clue what my exact start and finish times were. The race wasn’t chip-timed, and I had no watch. Surprisingly, time didn’t matter that much to me today. There was a reason why I forgot my watch. I needed to re-discover the magic of running. Even though I felt like absolute garbage for part of the race, the feeling afterward is priceless and indescribable.

I had forgotten how awesome I feel after a run. I had temporarily lost my passion for running. Not knowing my time allowed me to relish over the fact that I finished. I’ve missed this feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. I’ve missed this feeling of strength and power. I’ve missed feeling good and proud of myself.

I’ve finally found my groove again.

I’m back.

I even created my own little version of Operation Beautiful.

Operation Believe

I’ll be seeing (and thinking) this every morning for the next month.

I can do it.

 

Are you in a funk? Or are you finding your groove again?

Tagged as: believe in yourself, getting out of a funk, self-discipline, weight gain

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