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Sunday, September 2, 2012

Problems and... Being Productive

Today started out an interesting day.  I woke up in the morning, ready to run 9 miles to meet a friend at Victor Ashe Park, and wrote down the directions on my hand.  I just drank a little bit of water because for a 9 mile run, I could make it without too much trouble... but I ended up missing one turn and ended up running for 14.78 miles in 2:04:57 (8:27 min/mile pace).  I didn't feel that great at all and wasn't ready to go out for another run right away.

Making a mistake can cause you to have to change plans.  It can mess things up.  It can hurt you tremendously.  In those cases, you need to work with the problem at hand.  Whining and crying won't do anything about it, so when you have a problem, you need to attack it and find something to do.  It's not always about figuring out what the solution to the problem is... but it is about figuring out what productive thing you can do.  Sometimes, the productive thing isn't solving the problem.  For example, let's say that there was a fire.  The solution would be to stop the fire.  However, we might not have the means to do so, so we're helpless... except that we can do something productive.  Call for the firefighters to come, scream and shout to let people know that there's a fire going on... things that won't stop the fire, but could still save lives.

We can't solve everything, but we could definitely help situations.  I made the mistake of making a wrong turn that added miles to my route, causing me to work harder and run without water being put back into my system.  I couldn't deal with the situation at hand, and I needed to get to the Park to go run.  Dehydrated, I made my way to the park, and immediately began hydrating myself.  After the initial hour and a half, and figuring out that I went too far the wrong direction, I immediately dropped my pace because I knew that I wasn't going to get hydrated in the near future.  It didn't solve my problem, but it sure helped me from getting sick.  I made it to the park and rested a little bit, and after talking with Whitney, we walked, and then ran for 3.34 miles in 37:00 (11:03 min/mile pace) and fortunately, she was sore from working out the day before, and so we called it quits after that, and she offered me a banana and a ride home, and I gladly took both.  I originally planned for a little break and a lunch before I headed back home, but because of this unexpected longer run, my body couldn't handle the trip back and I made the hard decision of taking her offer and riding back home.

During those times, you just need to shove your pride down and be smart about what you're going to do.  When something unexpected comes up or a bad decision is made, you need to be productive and do what's best in that situation.  Sometimes, it's actually finding a solution, and at other times, it's about doing what's best for you and your goals.

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