How?

• Sat, Oct 17: (which really happened Fri, Oct 16) 7 miles, 1 1/2 hours on the treadmill.

So, apparently, when you can run 6 miles comfortably, you can follow the "advanced" calendar. I'm definitely still a beginner, so no confusion there. But 6 miles is like a magic number in my mind, and I wondered how I would handle the 6-7 miles required. Especially since 4 miles two weeks ago hurt, and I'd just managed the 5 miles this Monday (late from Saturday).

Well, this is how:
- By focusing on my breathing which, you know, is slowly improving.
- By telling myself to get on with it, because 26.2 miles is way longer than 7.
- By staring at the bumps in the beige-yellow paint on the wall that kinda look like the southern cross and trying to find "the zone"
- By imagining a line pulling me inexorably forward, a mostly red line on a road that curved ahead in the distance
- By determining that I should dig deep, and contemplating a vision of my mental "core" from which I could ... um... dig deeply
- In fact, just about anything that would keep my feet moving.

There was a minute, at about 1 hour, where a painful cramp hit and I was wondering, is this it? Is this the run where I stop? But thankfully, I tried slowing down rather than stopping and miraculously it worked. The cramp eased, the feet kept moving.

But this mental battle.... It's as bad, maybe worse, than the physical one. Because when I think about it, at an easy pace, it really isn't as bad physically as I thought. People got on, and then off, the treadmills next to me, and there I was, still running. Trying to keep it easy, trying not to fight myself, trying not to obsess about the time and the distance, trying to find " the zone". And here and there, I did have moments of mental peace. But, too brief, and the battle started again. In the end, how to keep going? How?