Run Happy

I'm sure most of you are familiar with Brooks and their "Run Happy".  When you go to events such as the Mt. SAC Relays, the Brooks PR invite and smaller meets sponsored by Brooks, it is plastered all over just about every surface possible.  They hand out sunglasses, sweatbands, and rubber bracelets printed with it like free candy.  While I was running in Lake Powell last week, I found myself pondering this idea quite a bit.  As I practically crawled over several miles of rock, thinking that I would meet my doom at the fangs of some rattlesnake or the sting of a scorpion all the way, I caught a glimpse of the Run Happy stamped into a bracelet I got at the Davis Invite.  My feverish brain chuckled.  Run happy indeed, it muttered as sweat rolled into my eyes and I wondered if anyone would come rescue me if I decided to just lie down and take a little nap.  But as I thought about it more and more, it began to make sense to me.  Why would anyone in their right mind do something like this if they didn't really love it?  If running wasn't something that they knew would make them happy in the end, even if training was a little rough sometimes.

View from the top of Satan's Armpit, Lake Powell

Because my mind often tends to wander when I am out for a run alone, I soon after found myself thinking about all of the different catchphrases for running companies and critiquing them all because why not?  Brooks obviously has the best for runners.  Nike's, though it is motivational for some people, definitely does not work for me all the time.  When I'm having a bad run or a rough race, thinking Just Do It just doesn't do it for me.  That just makes my brain and body get in a fight that my body usually ends up winning because my brain simply doesn't have the energy to deal with it.  The best strategy for me in those rough spots is to think about how much I really do love this sport, and how much I want to continue in it.  If I let a bad race or lack of motivation stand in the way of that, I would never have made it past JV running.  In the past, every time I had a bad workout or thought it might be fun to just take one day off and relax, I had to remind myself of my goals to run in college, and hopefully someday run after college.
So, next time you find yourself thinking about just how good a donut sounds, or how you would rather be out having fun than going for another run, remember to run happy and learn to enjoy even the bad runs.