another battle on the trail

So out on the trail, dehydrated and hallucinating about water, I actually thought to myself "I would pay my kid a million dollars to buy me bottles and bottles of soda water".   God how I miss those bubbles.  I gave up soda water about six months ago and there are times I still crave it.  Why give up soda water?  There were actually several reasons that drove me to go cold turkey.  It was hard to ignore the insane amount of recycling I had every week and 90% of it was empty soda water bottles.  I knew I was spending decent amount of money and trashing the earth for bubbly water and that was hard to justify.  A guy I worked with told me that his wife believed that bubbly water actually impacts your body's calcium absorption and although that had almost no immediate impact it was just another knock against those dang bubbles.  Tapped the movie hit the internets and I was a goner and knew I had to let my little vice go.  It was not as hard as I thought it would be but I still order it when I am at a restaurant (generally from the gun or a glass bottle so it is not propagating the plastic) but there are times, like today when my thoughts crave those tiny bubbles to be readily accessible in my fridge.

Today I had a really interesting "run".  My Guy's running coach told him to just go on his run and not worry about speed or form and just go on the run.  I heard Stew talking about building habits and doing the best you can do.  I have become surrounded by some positive reenforcement and I some how a little managed to sink in.  I went out to this run not feeling my best a headache, sour stomach, dehydrated - all the joys of running Saturday morning without eating and having a blast Friday night - with a touch of starting my period.  I knew it was going to be tough, but I left in good spirits.  After about 1 mile, I knew that I could not run the 6 I had planned - not well - if at all.  I made a crazy decision - I would just do whatever I could so I ran a little and fast walked other parts.

I really enjoyed it even though it was still hard.  Now it was not as hard as if I had just bullied through and run the whole 6, but I actually was able to enjoy myself.  The path I run on is actually quite pretty and there are tons of bikes on the path and I realized I wanted to go for a ride tomorrow morning.  I found that with the acceptance of my "failure" that I had space in my mind.  It felt a bit freeing and allowed me to think creatively about some of work challenges and feel comfortable in my own skin.

I wonder why it is hard for me to feel that way naturally and instead I feel paralyzed with my failure.  I am not sure how I "learned" to beat myself up at every misstep - even if it is while I am learning or building skills.