Derailment

ORN: 5K in 33:29, which I am not too proud of. Today was warm [74°] and muggier than Central Park after dark. On the good side, the blackberry bushes were dropping their fruit today. I was sorely tempted to stop and gorge myself on the succulent little tidbits. [Seriously, if you've never had a real Southern-style blackberry cobbler, stop what you are doing and get some stat! Vanilla ice cream on the side is required.] Instead, I chose to get the hot, sore-kneed, miserable run over with.

Right in the middle of my trail, a gaggle of geese were fattening themselves on the berries. One opened its beak at me and followed me with its malevolent, dead-eyed gaze, apparently saying either a) Dude! Blackberries! or b) GTFO. Not wanting to a) fist-bump a frat boy goose or b) get my ass kicked, I ran on and avoided eye contact.

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As I sit here, doing the fishstick to "Get It On [Bang A Gong]" by The Power Station, I contemplate my lousy performance of late. My mental game is all helter skelter. Somewhere along the line, I guess as I trained for the half marathon, I realized that I could run 1,000 miles this year. That was never my goal for 2008, but as my mileage increased, the gap between the pace bunny and myself narrowed. I couldn't help but unofficially adopt it at least as an unstated, back-of-my-mind goal. If I ran more than 20 miles in a week and saw the gap decrease, I secretly celebrated. If I feel short and saw the gap widen, I secretly kicked myself in the junk.

But after several lackluster, inconsistent, post-race weeks, I had the realization that I had internalized something that was never my goal. My theme for this year was consistency, not distance. Since the half marathon, I have not been running as consistently as I would have liked, and part of the reason is that I have had this false goal in my head.

For example, this weekend, I had numerous opportunities when I could have run 2 - 4 miles, but since I could not find time to steal away for a full 5 miler [50 - 55 minutes, and then recovery, and then shower/shave, so easily an hour and a half], I did nothing. If I had run for the time I could make for myself, I would have at least run some distance, and I would have felt better about myself.

So I have to constantly repeat my mantra — consistency.

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BTW, I was going to post this without a playlist, since I haven't posted in a while, but I wanted to show the world that I actually listen to Sigue Sigue Sputnik. There, I said it.

1. You Can't Get Away from Me - Reverend Horton Heat
2. Rag And Bone - The White Stripes
3. The Cave (Cognito Fiesta version) - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
4. Holidays in the Sun - Sex Pistols
5. Wig - The B-52's
6. Devil's Dance Floor - Flogging Molly
7. Sweet & Dandy - Toots and the Maytals
8. 21st Century Boy - Sigue Sigue Sputnik
9. Wild Honey Pie - The Beatles
10. Bad Girl - Donna Summer
11. Shoulder Pads & Shiny Shoes - A.M.