"If you wanna win you gotta learn how to play"

Pretend high five to the first person who names that tune.

So, I've been feeling discouraged over the last few runs because I've had to stop for rest breaks all of a sudden.  Last night I decided I was not going to stop and rest no matter what.  I had some tricks going into the run to try and help myself out.  Mind games if you will.

I decided to forego the TV watching because it doesn't seem to be distracting enough when the going gets rough.  It was just me and my iPod.  I decided to set it on shuffle, set it down, and not touch it again!  I get so easily distracted by watching the clock, or my watch, or shuffling through songs on my iPod so last night I just let play.  Here is the playlist the universe picked for me:

1. California Gurls by Katy Perry
2. Harder to Breathe by Maroon 5
3. Big Green Tractor by Jason Aldean
4. Not Meant to Be by Theory of a Deadman
5. Mine by Taylor Swift
6. Wish You Were Here by Mark Harris
7. Speak Now by Taylor Swift
8. My Sister by Reba McEntire
9. Marry Me by Train
10. Tik Tok by Kesha

The last two would have worked out much better had they traded places since I started my cool down walk right as Kesha came on.  Also, there was a lot of mellow stuff that came on which doesn't exactly encourage speediness.  Still it was nice not futzing with the music the whole time and listening to some songs that I typically don't listen to while running.

Mind game #2 that I played with myself: our treaddy is in front of the TV, which I've already said stayed off last night.  Which means the screen acted like a mirror right in front of me.  Every time I caught myself feeling negative or worn out or just staring at myself in the TV screen I smiled.  That's it, just smiled at myself.  I read somewhere that if you're feeling down, but you smile anyway, soon your mind will believe that you're happy.  So I tried the same trick with my run.  As long as I kept smiling at myself, my mind would believe I was happy with my run and I would therefore end up with a good, happy run and not another disappointment. 

Since I have a 5K race coming up on Saturday (if it's not ice/blizzard delayed) I decided to run 3.1 miles last night.  My confidence has been a bit shaken this past couple of weeks and I wanted to make sure I could still do it!  Well, I did make it 3.1 (without stopping to rest!) in 33:16 (10:44 pace) at an incline of 1%.  I'm feeling much, much happier about this one!