Get out of my own way!

Recently I've been noticing a trend. Lots of us need to get out of our own heads before we can do certain things well. Overthinking can lead to poor form, hindrance of coordination, and the dreaded "I can't do this"! At some point we ALL fall victim to it, but we can't let it dictate all of our workouts or endeavors. Sometimes all it takes is a little distraction to get around it!

Case and point? This past weekend's 5-mile Mudders & Grunters Mud Run in Yorktown, NY. I had been sick and had not run since TWO mondays before the race...that's a long time to not run and then dive into a 5-miler! I wasn't concerned about my time or the distance so much as I was concerned about the running driving all the phleogm out of my chest and then there was the fear of a relapse. Okay, maybe I was a little concerned about the distance. If it was a 5k I wouldn't have been too concerned.

Anyway, it was the most entertaining 5 miles that I have ever run. While it was the most physically demanding run that I have ever had the pleasure of completing, it was one of the easiest mentally. The entirety of the race was mud, so there was no time to think about anything else but foot placement and the ever increasing weight of my shoes! I also ran it much faster and more easily than I thought I would given my lack of training.

It just goes to prove that once you remove your "I can't"-brain from the equation you can do quite alot! Once you remove the nay-sayer you can let your strong body do what it does best; move! Your body knows how it should move, you just have to let it do it's thing! So next time you are trying to do pullups, pushups or trying to run a longer distance or at a faster speed, get rid of the nay-sayer. If you can distract yourself long enough to get the work done then you can prove to yourself that you ARE indeed capable of that task.

*However, please don't distract yourself to the point of endangerment! The point is to avoid the momentary thought of "can't" when faced with a daunting task. The point is not to fade out, not to lose focus, not to be mentally absent. Good luck!