Positively Positive Positiveness.

I have recently posted about a string of positive long runs that I have had. Some people like the positiveness, some people want to barf. Who am I and when did I become so positive? I mean, I believe myself to be a glass-is-half-empty kind of girl. But hey, life is good, right?

So, in the spirit of positiveness and maintaining a positive attitude, I will describe my 18 mile run on Saturday morning with positive statements only...

• I am positive that my 18-miler sucked.
• I am positive that it was my worst run of the year, maybe ever.
• I am positive that the humidity level exceeded 100%.
• I am positive that I drank my weight in fluids during the run, and I thus positively became more sluggish and felt like I gained about 10 pounds (and I still feel that way...sigh...).
• I am positive that drinking so much was stupid.
• I am positive that I walked so much I had to do almost an entire loop around Memorial Park at the end just to get in 18 running miles.
• I am positive that my running skirt stretches down close to my knees when its soaked with sweat.
• I am positive that I am not Amish, so a long running skirt is not a good thing...it just added to my general annoyance with the whole run.
  
• I am positive that I was mentally out of this run 1/3 of the way through, and you know what they say about the power of positive thinking. Heck, I even wrote about it in my previous post. Figures...
  
• I am positive that positive thinking was not what was taking place in my brain at any point.
  
• I am positive that what kept me going was the thought of an ice cold beer at the end.
• I am positive that I did indeed drink that ice cold beer at 9am.
• I am positive that I was also motivated by thoughts of a long nap.
• I am positive that I am competitive and push myself and am hard on myself when I don't have a good run.
• I am positive that I cannot explain what happened to me out there today...it is what it is.
• I am positive that I always have one super craptastic run each year, and I'm hoping this was it.
• I am positive that I will rebound from this disaster and will be stronger because of it.
• I am positive that what I consider a terrible run could be a great run for someone else...keeping it in perspective...

Now, my own positiveness has made me queasy. Or maybe its the fatigue or the random nosebleed I just had.

The moral of the story - no matter how fast or slow you run, no matter how long you have been running or how many marathons you've completed, everyone is going to have a day when they ask themselves "Really? Am I really out here running so I can feel like crap during and after? This is not worth it. I'm done! How can I run a marathon if I can't even make it through 18 miles without thinking three hours of waterboarding would be better than this?"

But... I DID NOT QUIT! That's the most positive thing, and the only truly positive thing, about my 18 mile run. If you have a bad run, whether its a 3 miler or the marathon, pick yourself up and dust yourself off, analyze what went well (if anything) and what didn't, tuck away in your mind what you learned, and then forget about the run and move on.