Running on Sunday

I'm VERY excited that Mark should be coming home Friday!! This is what I was hoping for and definitely an answer to prayer!!

Sunday I run a half marathon with my running partner. It's my 7th. Which should be an accomplishment in and of itself but I realized last night when slugging out a pathetic 3 miles on the treadmill that I have expectations for how the race will go. My expectations are almost more like things I feel like I'm "entitled" to as a regular runner. However, I don't want to take the basic ability to run for granted so here are the misconceptions I plan to have the correct frame of mind about leading up to Sunday's race.

Wrong: The race will go well and I will feel good about how I ran.
Right: Be thankful for the ability to run and chalk this up as an opportunity to be healthy, get exercise, wear a t-shirt I earned, and spend time with my running partner and good friend.

Wrong: I suck at running and won't beat my time and feel frustrated I didn't train harder.
Right: Be thankful for the ability to run and that I'm out there at all and listen to what my body needs and not worry about the time and remember I trained well (although not as hard as possible, but that's okay) and feel good about the effort leading up to the race.

A couple months ago my mom and I talked abut how it's hard not to have too high of expectations for yourself in terms of running (it's our 3rd big year of training) and to really focus on just being thankful and doing the best you can. So that's what I need to do is not worry about beating my last time (although don't mind if I do), but just run as best I can do and just enjoy the experience (as much as you can when kicking your body through 13.2 miles).