push and shove

yesterday i had a mini breakdown.  i was laying on the couch watching project runway and all of a sudden i was like--i have to go to work tomorrow.  i have so much to do.  i had fun this weekend but i just didn't do enough.  i never do what i need to do.  etc etc etc crying etc being mean to mike etc etc turning my anxiety into: "and i need my own desk to do work!"  poor mike...he doesn't know what to do when this happens to me (because there isn't really anything to do).  he knows i am unhappy at work but yesterday i really tried to verbalize what it was about my job that made me so unhappy.  i no longer feel like i am good at my job.  i feel like every day i am failing, and a part of me feels like i have been set up to fail--albeit unknowingly.  i didn't always feel this way.  i used to feel quite the opposite in fact. 
today's work day was more of the same.  however, today my mindset was very different than usual.  i decided that the shove of a bad day where i couldn't seem to do anything right was going to push me towards a new goal.  i've mentioned before that i have been training for a 5k.  i finished the interval training and have just been jogging at an easy pace, trying to increase the amount of time i jog.  these runs have been ending at around the 2.5 mile mark.  not too bad, but not enough for the 3.1 miles i'll need to do to complete a 5k.  on saturday i had a really good run and felt like i could have kept going.  when i got home i kept wishing that i had pushed myself to run an even 3.  after a day where i felt like i was falling short from 8-4, i wanted to meet a personal goal.  as usual, i spent the first 10 minutes getting into a comfortable pace but then the minutes just flew by.  i'm not working on speed right now so it took me awhile to get to 3 miles, but it felt great to have reached a goal that i've been slowly building on over the past two and half months.  i probably could have gone further, but i don't want to hurt myself. 

oh get moving

i took an unplanned mini-break from my couch to 5k work while i was preparing for/on my juice cleanse, but now i am back in it.  even though i am NOT a "runner" i felt like a 5k was the kind of goal that i could achieve.  starting off was actually pretty easy because, while not able to run long distances, i am not a total couch potato.  i go to the gym an average of twice per week, i walk 20 minutes to and from the subway each morning, and i don't sit at a desk.  all of the those factors made the first couple of weeks of the program pretty easy for me.  i am now into the final couple of weeks and instead of running 3-5 minutes at a time, there are days when i'm running 10-20 minutes straight.  my sister bought me an ipod shuffle for christmas which has been a lifesaver, but i definitely needed a little more inspiration to get me into my gym clothes and on the treadmill 3 days per week.  this is how i function: when my apartment is messy, i look at home design blogs or watch movies with amazing design (like royal tenenbaums) to inspire me to clean.  i found that i always wanted to work out at 10:00 at night after watching the biggest loser so i started watching it on netflix to push me to go to the gym and continue the episode.  working out is not easy for me.  my couch is very comfortable and there are many distractions in my apartment and things to cross of my to-do list that get in the way of my fitness goals.  to counteract this, i decided to buy haruki murakami's book: what i talk about when i talk about running.  murakami is my favorite author and i have read all of his novels.  i figured that since i am already inspired by his writing style, i might also be inspired by his love of running.
so far it is working.  murakami has such an easygoing way of talking about it--like he just decided to start running at 33 and so he just does.  i think that is an idea that i am trying to adopt in my own life: if i decide to do something, just do it.  like, why not, right?  over the next two weeks i will be running 30-35 minutes at least 3 times per week.  after the couch to 5k program is over i am just going to push myself to run a little more every day.  my goals are to comfortably run a 5k this summer (i signed up for the color run with some friends in july!) and then to push myself to be able to run 5 miles without keeling over.