Friday Five - more lessons from running

I hope everyone had a great week!  My week was definitely an improvement over the past couple weeks as I'm over the bronchitis and can breathe again :) It's amazing how much that improves everything.  And being Friday, it's also time for the Friday 5 link up with Courtney, Cynthia and Mar.

This week's theme is National Running Day so I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk a little bit more about what I've learned from running.  I wrote a similar post last year for another Friday 5 link up about 5 fitness truths I had learned as a new runner and here are 5 more things I've learned recently.

1.  Communication - This is a weird thing to associate with running but I feel like one of the things that has really improved with me and my running friends is my communication skills!  I've always been one to avoid things that I feel may lead to confrontation or hurt feelings.  But these are often just my own projections of how people will feel and not reality.  Running with friends has forced me to be direct about some things and it's always ended up an easier conversation than I thought! 

Becoming even better friends through running

2.  It's ok to not love it all the time - I used to think "true runners" loved running all the time and never had days when they would rather just relax and sit on the couch.  I used to beat myself a bit when I felt like not running because what type of runner did that make me!?!  But I've learned from talking to and reading other runners' blogs that most people have those days when they just feel meh about running or just don't make it out there.  And that's ok.  The love will come back.

3.  Perseverance - But those days have taught me that sometimes you have to just persevere through runs where you're just not that into it.  And sometimes faking it until you make it actually works and you re-discover a joy of running by just going out there and doing it, even if you didn't really want to.

4.  Little pleasures - Of course, there are those big joys in running like PRs.  But there are definitely runs and races that won't have any of those big pleasures.  Especially the runs you're forcing yourself to go out on when you're not really feeling it.  But I've learned to try to enjoy the little pleasures I find in those runs like cute kids, pretty flowers, a nice breeze, etc.

Seeing a family of ducks during a cold run

5.  Optimism and confidence - When I started running, I kept reading or hearing about how much of running was really about the mental aspect.  And I don't think I understood that.  But I've learned that this is really true and a bad mood can definitely impact my performance on a run.  I still get negative thoughts but the more I'm able to turn them around to be more optimistic and confident, and remind myself that this is something I chose to do for good reasons, the better the run will be.  And this is a lesson that probably can be applied to almost everything in life!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend :)