Arthur’s Seat

Alice and I are running the Glasgow half marathon in October. This means that I just started training again, three runs a week. Today, I ran from our apartment up to Arthur’s seat, a huge rock formation in the middle of the city.  There is something like 600 feet of climb, and it all happens in the last few hundred meters of the run. The views were breathtaking, even with my heart pounding like a jackhammer at the top. It is like when you are in a plane approaching a city, and you can see everything small down below, except at Arthur’s Seat, everything is stationary, and you have time to just sit and take in the view.

When I was training for my second half, I noticed that I started living differently when I was getting ready to run. I was eating healthier, trying to get more sleep, and taking better care of my body. This time is no different.  At the beginning of each week, for example, I make a giant pot of pulled pork, onions, garlic, kale, peppers, tomatoes, and maybe broccoli, and put it in the fridge. Then, in the morning, I take a big scoop of it, heat it up, throw in a few eggs, and eat it for breakfast. After a wheatgrass juice and apple cider vinegar concoction, a cup of black coffee with either grass fed butter or coconut oil, and a multivitamin, I’m ready for the day. My lunches and dinners are often salads or stir-fries, and occasionally rice.  My body correspondingly feels incredible, as if miraculously, taking care of it makes it work better. Who would have thought?

And the question is, why don’t I live my life as if I was always training for peak performance?  Why don’t I treat my body as if it was always getting ready for a race, whether I’m running regularly or not? Why not treat my body as if it was a race car, getting ready to compete?