Moving goalposts and knowing your limits

Today I decided I'd aim for a "long run". For me, at the beginning of increasing my distance and endurance, this meant running for 12 minutes non-stop. The 5K training involves quite a lot of starting and stopping and I felt pretty down about it all after Friday.

About five minutes into the run today I said to my partner, "I'm crap at running, I can't do it." He told me to just keep going. I reminded myself of times during my recovery where I just didn't want to do another day of feeling sad, of being in pain, of having to just do this day in my life. But I didn't have a choice. I had to grind on through the difficulties and hope the next day was better. So I thought about grinding through the run, just keeping going and keeping moving. And I did it, I completed a 12 min non-stop run. Go me!

Then my partner suggested running another five minutes. Why not, I thought. Except, I just could not do it. My legs were tired, I was tired. It wasn't happening and I just walked the rest of the way home.

I was feeling pretty crap about myself on that short walk back. I couldn't keep going for just five minutes more, how useless was I?

But the point wasn't that five minutes. The point was that I'd gone out to run 12 minutes and I had done it. I should've been pleased with that. I'd met my goal for the day. That should have been enough, why move the goalposts? It's not fair when people do it at work, or in life, so why do it to myself? I knew I'd find 12 minutes tough but it was achievable. Another five on top? Not so much.

So I cheered up. I know what my limits are. I've got to keep pushing on, but equally, feeling crap about myself for my not managing more than I actually can at any point during this training won't help either. I am finding this 5K training hard, but I know that if I put the work in now, it will get easier.