Trails

I dreamed about trail running last night. I dreamed about hills and grass and dirt and trees.

Some of my favorite runs last year were on trails, and so were some of my most accomplished and triumphant runs. I never felt like I was grinding when I was on a trail, and I know it's obvious and it's what everyone things... I know that now, anyway. It was a surprise to me, the first time I felt the happiness that is running on the dirt.

Still thinking about my run yesterday. My knee is giving me trouble today, and I'm thinking FUCK! Seconds turn into minutes!!

It's an added stress I wasn't quite expecting.

I started this... this whole thing, as my own project, with trial and error being my own responsibility. Now, having done one marathon, I know that if I don't get help, I'm going to have a really hard time. I'm definitely going to need help this time around in order to succeed because... Seconds!! Into MINUTES!!! That's changing everything!

I felt it when I was in the shower after that first speed run. Maybe it's stupid to be worrying about it after the first trial, but if you don't start worrying and wanting to improve right away, when will it happen? This isn't a trial run. Every time I do this, it's for real. It's real effort. Anyway, I was standing there, thinking about it, and about the laps I had just looked at, and I was disappointed and annoyed and freaking out a little bit, but also, I realized that I understood something I had seen once, some passion that I had seen once in someone else, this crazy passion, to the point of (what I thought) was going way too far. But now, I think, If something happened, and I couldn't do this, after all my effort, I would freak out. I would totally lose my cool and tear myself apart.

Effort is real. Effort will never betray you.

I only have that written down in about 20 different places around my room.

Effort will never betray you.

I'm not half-assing this. I'm doing this seriously. I hope I can train, and race, all the way to the end, and still be OK if I don't make it. If something happens, I have to be OK with that but I will not go into this thinking that way. I won't let that be my fall-back plan, that, Oh, it's OK if I fail because that's never going to be a mindset that will get me through to the end.

I wish I was doing more trail races coming up, because all my training is going to be grinding it out on the roads.