What moved you today?

Hard run today on a couple of levels.

First and foremost a wonderful person has left our world as of this morning and I mourn her loss.
When you have a couple of miles all to yourself with little but the rhythm of your body and thoughts to keep you company it's natural to reflect on things I think. After a day marked by a number of purposeful distractions it was no surprise that my mind turned back to her.

I felt like I had an awful lot of unrelenting me time to think about things. Today marked the transition to the "say goodbye to walk breaks" portion of the C25K program with a longer run by five minutes than I've done previously in the program *coughs* Or since about high school, and any running then was away from getting in trouble rather than toward health. I was SO good at hopping fences though and I find this really comforting when I get uncomfortable with how slow a car is passing. But I digress.

Humidity was high with an Air Quality Index of 110 (aka "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups"), and keeping down to a reasonable pace was hard. I think I was just itching to get done with it and move on to something else, so I kept speeding up subtly and then catching myself. Consequently I spent a lot of time even more winded than I needed to be. My legs felt pretty good after the first mile, but I couldn't really catch a good rhythm and every breath felt about as nourishing as breathing warm jello.

If you don't recognize this scene get up and watch The Abyss. Yes, right now.
Wasn't that awesome? Moving onward...

I also think I may need to start bringing water along with me. Despite a concerted effort to drink a metric butt-tonne of it during the day (I try to make sure I'm peeing completely clear by the time I head out, aren't you glad you know that?) I always feel completely parched by halfway through and I've noticed a growing issue with burping and nausea by the end of my run. I am NOT a puker and yet I have felt pretty close a few times now. I thought it was an issue of eating too late but really an hour and a half wait should be sufficient and if this is to be believed it may very well be due to mild dehydration. I really don't know how I want to deal with that as I already feel like I'm strapping a million things on with more to come, but at least I know that I can deal with a belt.

In all today's run felt pretty grueling, but every time I started getting really frantic about it that little voice popped into my head saying things like "At least you can run" or "You're not in pain, this is not even in the same universe as pain. You're not in danger, this is simple discomfort, suck it up and stop whining". I know these were coming from a pretty morbid place and in the long run I would prefer to find other sources of motivation, but for today that's what my brain gave me to work with, so that's what I used.

The woman I mourn was a do-er and a helper, so I hope to move forward in that spirit and keep alive her years of encouragement rather than the fragility of her existence, but for today I'm going to stick with the fact that this totally sucks, cancer can go screw, and I really wish she was still here with us outside of our hearts too.

What's the weirdest thing you've ever used as motivation?

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My run today: C25K week 6 day 3

2.72 miles at 13:01 per mile

As previously mentioned I need more air and more water, but I think I would prefer to have them more separated out then what the atmosphere is giving me to work with right now. I could deal without the nausea too but my legs are doing really good, a bit grumpy for the first mile but once I get past that I'm pretty set.