Two runs in one week?!?!? Could it be? Dare we say? Is she BACK>>>!!!???

It's 6pm.
And I'm home from work.
And I'm running before the sleepies catch me.
And the dude next to me is walking.
And the guy on the floor is trying to do a pushup.
And I'm rockin' the treadmill, Natalie-style, talkin' 'bout who needs to think when your feet just go?

A little over 5 miles, a little over an hour. Some fake hills, some fartlek. A mind run. A focus run. When I realized how hard it was last week, I realized how much I needed the focus on . . . you guessed it . . . focus. And, as Natalie said, a treadmill'll do that for ya.

It's the funny thing about Meggan Ann. When you tell her something is hard, or when she learns something is hard, the only thing it does is make her buckle down. Or stand up. Or wil' out. Or get crunk. Or act the fool. (Insert catch phrase here) and do it more. And harder. And faster. And better. A friend and I who both love things like marathons and sailing once agreed that we were a certain type of people - the type who are attracted to difficult things.

So Meggan Ann had a little conversation with herself. Actually, Meggan Ann had several conversations with herself, most of which she broadcast here, and few (if any) of them were little. Some of them went, I'm so sad, I'm so sick, I wish I could just appreciate living my life again. A lot of them went something like, this shit ain't easy. Most of them went like, ain't no way in hell I'm gonna be able to do this. A few even went, fuck this, I'm giving up now and getting out while the gettin' is good.

That's where it got redunkulous. (In a good way.)

I finally admitted to myself that no, it's not easy. No, I'm not getting a free pass, or a fair chance, or a good hand - again, insert colloquialism here. Instead of getting me down or bumming me out, though, the admission brought me back to reality, to another one of Meggan Ann's life learned lessons from that soon-to-be-famous poster Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned From Training: you have to remember that life has highs and lows, just like training. There will be good runs and bad runs, just like there wll be good days and bad days. There will be tears and pain, but there will be music and laughter. You have to ride the highs - but not let them take you too high. And you have to tough it out through the lows - cause there's a high right behind most of them.

And you have to remember that it's never going to be easy. Not only is it not easy - it's not going to get easier. But, if it was, I wouldn't be doing it.