Feeling Good at 3 miles

It means a lot when I say that I'm feeling comfortable at 3 miles now. I can't say much beyond that except that I'm going to try for 5, maybe tomorrow. I know I should be further along, but I'm trying! Even though I've been running 3 miles pretty consistently I'm reaching little milestones along the way such as running without complaining, running without stopping, running without fighting, and today I reached a new one - running and talking! Even though it might be obvious to most that you can talk to your jogging partner, I never thought about conversation because I've always been so focused on trying to make it through alive. It takes skills to talk and run at the same time! And I'm proud that we talked the whole 3 miles today! Yes, I'm that lame, but I already admitted that before. I can't believe this myself, but running is slowly becoming somewhat enjoyable. I might take that back tomorrow, but I just want to revel in this moment because it's not too often that I feel proud of the little steps I've taken to be where I am now. It might not mean all too much for you, but I wasn't able to run even 5 minutes without dying just a few months ago.

I'll leave you with a few words of inspiration from Bruce Lee if you're feeling a little discouraged about whatever your "marathon" is at this moment. Hope you will be victorious one step and one decision at a time.

“Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We’d run the three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile [Note: when running on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to six-and-a half minutes per mile]. So this morning he said to me “We’re going to go five.” I said, “Bruce, I can’t go five. I’m a helluva lot older than you are, and I can’t do five.” He said, “When we get to three, we’ll shift gears and it’s only two more and you’ll do it.” I said “Okay, hell, I’ll go for it.” So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I’m okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I’m tired, my heart’s pounding, I can’t go any more and so I say to him, “Bruce if I run any more,” —and we’re still running-“if I run any more I’m liable to have a heart attack and die.” He said, “Then die.” It made me so mad that I went the full five miles. Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, “Why did you say that?” He said, “Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”

If this doesn't inspire you, I'm not sure what will