Today's Buzzword is PAIN.

I've heard it said that runners must be masochists.  That there's no way they would put themselves through that unless they actually enjoy the pain.  Heck, I was one of people saying it for a while!  But running is not about liking pain; it's about being willing to tolerate a certain amount of pain and to push through it.

I feel like I hit some kind of long-distance training milestone today: I had a painful run.  I could tell right from the beginning that it was going to be rough... I had a physics midterm and a statistics midterm yesterday, so I haven't gotten as much sleep this week as a I normally do, so I felt tired, and everything just felt off.  I kept telling myself to just relax, to enjoy it, but after 3.5 miles of never hitting my stride, I was ready to get off that treadmill.

Once I was done, I felt terrible.  I was angry for not hitting the pacing goal I had set, everything was hurting, and I couldn't stop the flow of negative thoughts that were telling me "If 3.5 miles was this bad, how are you going to run 13.1?!"  Trying to make myself feel better, I tried to find one positive thing to focus on.  And here's what I found:

First of all, I finished!  I haven't set a time goal for this half-marathon- I just want to put in an effort that I can be proud of and to finish. And so even though I started feeling pain in mile 1 today, I pushed through and finished the scheduled 3.5 miles, and that is an effort to be proud of.

Second, there's good pain and there's bad pain.  Muscle soreness, shortness of breath, fatigue, heart pounding, sweating- that's good pain.  And then there's popping knees, sore ankles, stress fractures, tendonitis, sprains, pulled muscles, shin splints- that's bad pain.  Today was all good pain, and though it feels like that good pain tried to kill me, I know what bad pain feels like, and I should just be grateful because it really could have been so much worse.

Third, I outran the girls who were on the elliptical next to me.  I was already running when they got on, and I was still running when they got off.  And the ultra-competitive side of myself is relishing that fact.

The more I thought about it the more I realized that just because it's a painful run doesn't mean it's a bad one.  It's long-distance running, for heaven's sake; of course, there's going to be pain!  But this is good pain- it will make me stronger, it will make me healthier, and it will give me a sense of accomplishment.  I think the important thing is to acknowledge the pain, learn to tolerate it, and to look past it and see all of the wonderful and positive things the pain brings.

Despite all of these awesome Thursday running revelations, I will be taking a short break this weekend.  I had an slightly abnormal liver function test result last week (seriously nothing to worry about), but my doctor says that this can be brought on by strenuous exercise.  When I talked to her today, she said she wanted to do another one after I took a week off of running- and all other forms of activity, for that matter.  I must have pulled a face when she said it, though, because she kind of trailed of off and said "That's never going to happen, is it?"  Um...... NO.  However, we came to a compromise: I promised that today would be my last run for the week and that I would take the test on Monday (but you can bet I'll be back on that treadmill by Monday afternoon).  It's really not such a bad compromise, anyways, because I'm spending the weekend in New York City!  It should be a really fun trip, and hopefully busy enough that skipping one run won't be devastatingly difficult.  I'll let you know how it goes!