Changing Tenses

Changing Tenses

Yesterday, I ran the best I have run in months.

I am scheduled to run a half-marathon in little more than a month, but regardless of the impending deadline, I haven't been able to muster any motivation whatsoever.  I've been half-assing it - not eating right, not training midweek, and not even really running when I'm out running, if that makes any sense.  Nine months ago, I was averaging 7:30 - 8:00 min/miles for 13+ miles.  These days, I'm lucky if I can sustain 9:30 min/miles for five.

My old m.o. was to strap on my NikePlus monitor, put it on the pace setting and run to keep at my chosen pace.  I pushed myself during my runs, never wanting to back down, never giving less than all that I had at the moment.  These days, though, I rarely check the pace.  The monitor stays on the distance setting and my primary thought has been "how much farther do I have to go" rather than "how much faster can I go."

When the hell did I get so passive??  When did I get to the point that I thought I could forego training, diet, and preparation and, despite this, decent results would magically appear on my longer Sunday runs?

And what, you're wondering, am I doing babbling on about all this here?

Notice the lack of posts lately?  Maybe one a week for the past few weeks - after the active surge for the first month or so.  Passiveness has left the isolated realm of running and reared its ugly head in other parts of my life!  The blog post ideas haven't come as frequently as before, I've already written about the things I'm doing right at this moment, so, well, I just sit here, waiting for The Next Big Blog Post Idea to fall out of the sky and land in my lap as I sit on the couch and watch yet another episode of The Gilmore Girls or Grey's Anatomy.  Ugh.

Last week, I ate right, followed my special diet, trained all week, and come Sunday had a great run.  I increased my distance by 2 miles and my pace by about 30 seconds a mile.  This still only puts me at 9:00 min/miles for 9 miles, but the best part is that I felt like I was really running the whole time I was running.  I was there, engaged, involved, whatever you want to call it.  I've always called it "active running."

So now it's time to take this whole passive-to-active thing and get my butt in gear with my writing, posting, learning, planning.  I wish I could say that the switch has been flipped to the ON position, just like that.  For a few hours yesterday I thought maybe it had, but it's not quite there.  I'm on a dimmer switch, apparently, and the change isn't quite that dramatic.

What last week did remind me through my running, though, is that the dream of the good result without the work just isn't going to cut it.  If I want this to work, if I want my blog to be interesting or entertaining or relevant in some way, if I want the move to Vienna to happen, if I want to be able to find meaningful work, if I want to learn German, if I want to take full advantage of all there is to do in the Bay Area before we leave - I've got to get my passive ass in gear, not only literally, but figuratively, and make it all happen.