afghanistan2010: Wax On, Wax Off, April 18, 2010

Fridays and Sundays are low ops tempo days, which means we only work 8 to 10 hours. These are the days that I hope to get in a long run. Friday morning, I had every hope of getting an 8 miler in. During the first lap, my legs felt like lead. Every fiber in my legs were screaming to my brain “give it up…go back to bed”. Since I’m not the give it up kind of gal, at the end of the lap, I stopped, stretched and shook my legs and then kept going. No change. As I ran, I started thinking through the probable causes of this fatigue/pain. I had to wear my 40 lbs of battle rattle three times this week, even exercised in it. I didn’t drink enough water the day before. I’m not getting enough sleep. And the list goes on. With those probable causes, I gave myself permission to stop, stretch and shake at the end of the second, third and fourth laps. If I were a novice runner, I would have bagged the run and gone back to bed.

These are the kind of runs that make you hate running, and for a lot of people, prevent them from becoming a runner. Instead of enjoying the music and the scenery, you are thinking about running…about how your legs feel, about how tight (or loose) your shoes are, about your heart rate, about your pace, about the pain, etc. All this feedback from your body to your brain is one of nature’s ways to protect you from injury. However, I battled it out and completed 9 laps, for about 6.3 miles. The last 5 laps were enjoyable—it was the reward for battling it out.

How does one know when it is your body’s basic instinct meant to protect you from injury versus it is ok to battle through? I don’t really know for sure, but this is what I am thinking. While we have certain basic instincts that drive our actions, we also have freedom to choose to control those instincts. We don’t have to react immediately (or at all) to what our instincts/urges tell us to do. We have the ability to think through a litany of information that lives in our brain—our education and training, past history, our goals, desires, etc. For me, this information told me that my stride is still good (education and training), I’d felt this before and actually lived (history), if I don’t keep going, I’m going to be a bitch today (goals and desires), etc. So, with the power of positive thinking, I battled through.

To steal a line from Steven Covey, a habit is the intersection of knowledge, skills and desire. I suppose that this means that running is a habit for me, but I also think of it as a simple example of self mastery—control over ones desires and actions. This is a basic human freedom that we are endowed with, and it is easy to squander--if you don’t use it, you lose it. The power of the brain to rationalize excuses is enormous, and it is oh, so tempting to listen!

My thoughts about the Taliban are this: They are scared of their own basic instincts, and think to control or regulate them through law, rather than through self control. As far as their treatment of woman…if they can make her go away or be invisible, they do not have to deal with their instinctual desires. When they do have to deal with women, such as their wives, they rationalize that their own bad behavior is her fault because she was the temptation. It is a shame that they have ultimate control over their women, but do not have basic control over their own actions.

Back to enjoying the scenery during a run…not so much here at NKC. However, we can smell the lilacs which are blooming behind our big ass walls. It gets you breathing deep, until you get to the port a johns. To which I respond to my fellow soldiers…smells like money…did you remember to pay your sewer bill back home?

My running buddies probably already know this, but most of my updates home are written in my head during a run. This one was written during that last 5 laps. Attached are few photos of one of my journeys this week, plus of our combat Olympics.