Masochism And Long Distance Running
Crack cocaine with a side of endorphins please!
I may preach compassion and good stuff all day long, but the truth remains that I, too, struggle to apply my own so called healthy medicine. There’s a fine line between knowing, and acting in concordance with what you know. Self imposed discipline is a dangerous way to live by when it leaves you under the false illusion that you are in control. Injury wasn’t enough to stop me. Neither were purple toes. I was like an addict crawling back to my running shoes, even though I knew they were trouble. Running 20 km a day isn’t discipline when it’s eating away at your well being. It’s nothing to be proud of. Im not conquering my body or breaking records here, I’m killing slowly the only vehicle I have to carry me through life.
When is too much too much? I wish I knew how to not run from one extreme to the other. How to resist trading one addiction for another. How to strike a healthy balance and remain there. I may not be stuck on the highway of consumerism, but I surely am stuck on the highway of proving to myself that I am capable of pushing my limits while breaking my body in between. Does that make me a sucker for physical pain? God knows. All that I know is that I'd take it anyday over emotional pain.
Sometimes, unfortunately, it takes pushing ourselves harder than we like to improve. But then again, there's always "too much of a good thing". Get a HRM, maybe an Oura ring, monitor all those physiological metrics (hr, sleep, effort, hrv) and watch the trends. It's a pain sometimes but will help reduce overdoing.
Run smart, not hard.
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Not going to miss you out running on the street with those runners on! I had to put my Oakley's on just so I didn't get blinded! :)
I think there's certainly something to pushing yourself to a point where you get sore -- in an effort to 'create' a pain that you can 'control'. Let the brain focus on what can be controlled rather than what can't.