Thursday, March 18, 2010

A Girl in the World

Went over to another neighborhood to put in 2 - 4 miles. I'm disappointed to say I only worked up to 2. I'm obviously having motivation problems here big time. I've said it before on this blog, but running around a bunch of neighborhoods is boring and I have a hard time pulling myself out there.
I feel trapped into neighborhood running though. There is a huge trail system in a forest around a local county lake but it's just completely unsafe to run there alone. Even some guys I know don't go there at night by themselves as it's surrounded by some not-so-great areas. There are park rangers, but it's pretty big and if you're going to run miles, it's not like someone can keep an eye on you the whole time.
There is also a system of paved trails that the city maintains. These are really nice but two problems there are safety (every year there's a women who get attacked on the trail system it seems) and secondly, I don't want to put in the majority of my mileage on roads. It just leads to injury for me.
I thought about starting to pay for a gym membership but I just had 6 months of free access to a YMCA and although I appreciated being able to cross train, I know I'd never want to do the majority of my mileage on a treadmill. Running for me is about life and being in nature. Treadmill running is just something I do when I have to get in some miles and there is no other option in sight.
The best thing that could happen to be is to find someone to run with.... Someone with the same mileage goals in mind and who runs at the same pace. Almost everybody I've ever run with, runs faster than me and one of us ends up frustrated. I'm getting faster by continuing my leg workouts, but still, I absolutely hate being pushed on my daily runs. - Unless it's a run where I'm working on speed, I just want to be working in my zone.
I used to run with a group on the weekends and I could join a group. But it still leaves me with the rest of the week, running in my neighborhoods.
Anyway, it's just where things have to be right now I think.
I feel frustrated often about being a woman and having the safety issues that men might not face. A woman just can't run anywhere without safety being a concern. Men also have situations where that is true, but it seems the majority feel free to run wherever and whenever they want. A lot of woman do it too, I know. I read some trail runner blogs where girls set out for miles on their own. Sometimes I think that maybe I should just do it.... but the truth is, I'd be so full of anxiety that someone was going to mess with me out there that I'd just not even be able to enjoy the miles.

Current sources of motivation:
Dirt Diva (trail runner/ultra runner)
Lisa (ultrarunner)

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