Excuses, cutting corners, and crossing the impossible line

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 The polar vortex has set in. 

The past two days the state of Michigan is dealing with single digit temperatures and below 0 wind chills

The children are not going to school tomorrow because it is so cold. 

How about I go for a run?

I thought about not running today. It was just a thought. The problem is there will always be excuses. If ever there were an excuse this would have been it. Is it even safe to run when it is that cold? I won't pretend like there aren't risks, but so help me if I get out of my rhythm I know how slippery the slope is to find other reasons to skip a training session. 

I know that if I can do this extreme cold running than it breaks down one more future excuse. Marathon training is physically rigorous, but it becomes increasingly mentally rigorous too as the weeks go by, mileage increases, and the race day comes closer. So I'm very mindful of the consequences of an excuse or skipped work out. I'm not going for perfection, but there better be a better reason than "It's really cold out."

On top of everything else, today was a speedwork day. 2 mile wu, 5x1k@5k-10k pace (6:35) 2mi cd ... ok. Uncle. I admit it. I didn't do the full 2 mile cool down. I cut the corner by a mile. I guess that's as close as I'll come to cheating myself. 

Over the past couple years, since I started this running adventure, I've learned to think about my limitations differently.  With each progressive distance I recognize my limitations as more fluid. Then after my marathon I figured out "ah! What else is possible?!" Running weather feels much the same way. This week I learned I can indeed run in the extreme cold. What's more I can do a speed work out in the extreme cold. In the same way I could run in extreme rain conditions I know with greater certainty I can run in the cold weather. 

It is a very liberating feeling. 




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