{"id":511,"date":"2013-09-22T14:22:42","date_gmt":"2013-09-22T08:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/?p=511"},"modified":"2014-11-14T15:57:48","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T10:27:48","slug":"an-epiphany-of-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/2013\/09\/an-epiphany-of-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"An Epiphany of Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

With much pomp and grandeur the monsoon bid us adieu. Since then, the temperature and humidity \u00a0have been rising steadily, along with the kilomteres.<\/p>\n

I am working now on Negative Splits, increasing my speed as I believe stamina for mileage will come. After 2 full marathons below my belt, I want to test \u00a0speed along with endurance. Hence, I am running relatively shorter distances, at faster paces.<\/p>\n

I run the first half at a regular long run pace, and step it up in the last 5-6 km. it takes a lot of determination to pick up my tired legs and to push the drained out brain. But, once I start its even harder to keep at it for the next few kilometers. It consumes my entire being to keep going.<\/p>\n

But I stick at it,with only one single thought, that I should keep going, and this too, shall end.<\/p>\n

Today, I ran 18k, with 4 km \u2013 from km 13- km 17 at a faster pace. \u00a0I got a stitch at this speed, I wanted to give up. I actually stopped for two seconds, but started running immediately after.<\/p>\n

I ran with pain.<\/p>\n

I ran because I wanted to.<\/p>\n

I ran because I could.<\/p>\n

I focused all my energy towards the one goal I had today. And, I did it.<\/p>\n

4 km \u2013 from km 13- km 17 @ 5.33 min\/km.<\/p>\n

I felt I had died.<\/p>\n

But, died and gone to heaven! \u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On reaching NCPA, I heard some of the runners \u00a0discussing humidity\u2026.But I had not even noticed!<\/p>\n

Me- me whose favourite peeve is the weather- the sun, the temperature!<\/p>\n

I just ran.<\/p>\n

It was only me and the road.<\/p>\n

Today, I found a quote on Kristen Armstrong\u2019s blog:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you focus on, Expands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wow- an epiphany.<\/p>\n

I now understand what has been going on in my brain. All this time I was focusing on the difficulties- weather\u2026distance\u2026..et al, which only made the run harder. The mere thought of it and what it might mean becomes consuming and much bigger than the actual challenge.<\/p>\n

It was the same for the hill run last week. I just put one foot in front of the other continuously, \u00a0and kept going.as a result- I ran all the hills- non stop- something which I have always aspired to do!<\/p>\n

The walls are crumbling\u2026\u2026.the mind is getting clearer\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

\"075<\/a><\/p>\n

When we focus on problems- doors close.<\/p>\n

When we focus on possibilities- doors open.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let us remember we can decide what we want to focus on.<\/p>\n

The choice is ours\u2026..ours alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With much pomp and grandeur the monsoon bid us adieu. Since then, the temperature and humidity \u00a0have been rising steadily, along with the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2013-2014","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/075-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5lWKK-8f","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":774,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions\/774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}