Patience?  Ha.

I want it now!

If I can’t accomplish it today, I’m pretty sure I won’t ever be able to–or at least that’s how it feels most of the time.  When things take time, when they require slow plodding I tend to get frustrated or bored or discouraged.  Learning to knit–and completing a project–was a personal test of persistence.  I love the outcome.  I have a a ton of cute scarves and hats now.  I wear them around for a night after I clip the last stitch even if it’s August.

But you can knit while sitting on your butt.

This working out thing?  I have to get up, change clothes, drive to the gym and then actually push my muscles further than they’d prefer. When the workout is over and I feel like a rock star because I completed it I pass by a mirror.  And I don’t look different at all!!!!  On the good days my face has a healthy rosy glow.  On the bad days my ponytail goes from cute to “who let my sons braid my hair again”, eye make-up is smudged across my face and my legs are so weak I’m wondering if I’m going to have to crawl back to my car.  Once there, all of the workout data gets loaded into my handy little app and then I see it.  At my current, ugly workout pace I might finish this damn race in just under a decade.

Fuck.

But I’m getting up from this computer to go put on my workout clothes and head out again.  Why?  Because I have a plan.  It’s not my plan.  It’s Michael’s plan.*  I’m trying to trust it.  He promises it will get me across that finish line.  I’m trying hard–so hard–not to look ahead.  I’m doing what is on the calendar for today.  I’m trying to have faith.  I’m taking this damn thing one day at a time.

Even if you’ve never had an addict in your life–or been an addict yourself–you might be familiar with those five words.

One Day At A Time

Alcoholics Anonymous and Ala-Non base their recovery model on this concept.  Don’t worry about the future.  Don’t worry about the next minute.  Focus on staying clean right now and have faith that those moments will string together into a new, changed life.

And I chuckle.  Who’d have ever thunk that I’d be employing the skills I learned to deal with my sister’s addiction to get myself across a finish line?  Running and addiction?  Rumor has it running can become an addiction.  But approaching running like I’m getting over an addiction?

My fingers are crossed, I’m wishing on stars and just completing what’s on my plan for today, even though last night when I looked at my pace I really wanted to throw in the towel.

*When I finally worked up the courage to admit that I was going to try and run a half-marathon the first question posed to me was about my “plan.”  “Oh sure, I’ve got one” I replied and then I quickly googled half-marathon plans and found this nifty one-pager that I hoped would get me to April 28th.  When I asked Michael if I really could do it and he outlined his approach I realized I needed something more than one page.  Let me tell you that using the Training Peaks app with the plan loaded into it has changed my whole attitude.  As much as I want to progress faster, I do take comfort in the daily plan I hold in my hot little hands.

I am not being compensated by Training Peaks or Vanguard Endurance for any of this.  Frankly, they’d have to pay me in a year’s worth of Louboutin’s to put myself through this.  I’m actually paying them.