One hundred degree heat, humidity, self enforced lack of food and water.  Pain and the glory of achievement and self-fulfillment.  I am sore from an intense squatting workout on Friday, but the fifteen minutes of walking is more than enough to work up a good sweat in this weather.  I take off into a steady trot, my only goal to jog for a half hour.  I haven’t felt this good jogging in over a year.  The soreness in my legs is gone and they are firing like pistons but seem to require no energy from me.

    When I run I don’t listen to music.  I take the time to feel my body, to know what it feels like in pain and how I react to it.  I struggle with myself internally.  The weak part of me wants to quit when things hurt, when it gets hard.  The strong part of me is just that, strong.  It is my noblest side; stubborn, dedicated, focused on accomplishing a goal, and accomplishing that goal purely for the sense of achievement.  With training it is sometimes good to let the weakness have a voice, you can’t go hard all the time without becoming injured, but in life and death situations there is no place for weakness.  It is animal instinct to seek out weakness and destroy it, so I put myself in a position to feel pain, to get a taste of desperation.  I am not a soldier in a war, I have no plane to jump out of, and no mountain to summit so I train, and I tell myself that this training doesn’t just sharpen my physical tools, but it sharpens my mental tools as well.     I always start a long jog conservatively, it’s my preference to start slow and finish strong, but I can’t help but pick up my pace as I pound along so steadily.  Cardio is more mental than it is physical, our bodies are often stronger than our minds and capable of persevering even when the mind has failed it.  Today I know I am physically capable of accomplishing my goal and I use several techniques to strengthen my mind, which is what a day like today is really about, training my mind to overcome pain, heat, thirst, hunger and exhaustion.  I know I am not going to die from any of this, but it is going to hurt and the weak voice inside will want to stop and walk, and if I let it it will reason with me until I finally give in and walk.       One of my techniques is to repeat a phrase over and over again.  They don’t always make sense but they give me something to focus on.  ‘The only rule is you can’t quit!’, ‘You like this!’, ‘2 minutes.  I can do ANYTHING for 2 minutes!’  I repeat these or something like them over and over at times in the run.  Sometimes my mind wanders, but when I begin feeling weak I give myself encouragement to drown out the voice of weakness.     This good start fills me with confidence.  I’m running easily and brimming with adrenaline and testosterone.  I have an overwhelming urge to bark and growl, and every once in a while I let some out when no one is around to hear.  I don’t look at my watch because I don’t want to look down to see I’ve only been running three minutes, but soon my quick pace up the hills is causing my lungs to work overtime and my empty stomach is aching.  I look at my watch and see ten minutes has passed.  At twelve minutes I am passing cold water and my stomach wretches in agony.  I desperately want to stop and I start repeating to myself, ‘This is what you wanted.  You wanted to hurt and know you could take it.  You can’t quit.’  While doing this my breathing comes a little easier and I find myself plugging along again.  I still hurt but, ‘You’re just out of breath, you’re always out of breath.  You don’t need to breath.’  I feel my legs beneath me and they haven’t faltered at all, in fact they are as light as when I began.  ‘I can do this all day.’     Through training I have learned to ‘Turn it on’, to get in a mindset where I have complete faith in my body to do what I tell it.  Even with an empty stomach and butterflies I feel the strength in my muscles ready to come out when I call for it.  To get there I let my Ego take control.  I become as simple as an animal thinking in feelings and emotions instead of words.  I feel like an animal, a predator, a hunter, a killer, an alpha male.  Now I don’t repeat mantras to myself.  I run like I am capable of smashing right through anything in my way.  There is no weakness allowed, no thought of failure, just supreme confidence.  There is no emotion in my movements, only cold efficiency.  My breathing is deep and even and my eyes are focused on no particular object far in the distance.  As I come to hills I speed up, reach the top breathing heavier and raggedly but I force myself to suck it up and get under control again.     By the time twenty minutes is over I am completely in the zone.  I hurt just as bad as I did before, my stomach hollow, my lungs burning, my legs beginning to cramp, but I am motivated by that.  It is not real pain, only discomfort, WHEN IT HURTS GO HARDER.  I think of watching George St. Pierre defend his title against Thiago Alves.  In the 3rd round he tore his groin and when he told his coach between rounds his coach screamed, “I don’t care!  You hit him with your groin!  Do you understand me?”  That is the mentality of a champion.  I may not be competing for any championships, but what kind of man can’t respect that will and toughness.       This isn’t a battle, this isn’t a fight, this is a run and there is no way a run can beat me, so I when I find myself tired and slouching I puff up my chest again and speed up.  It is simply a matter of me telling myself, ‘This is not allowed.  My fatigue is an illusion and the reality is I can keep going harder than this!’  Now I can’t help but yell, ‘AH!  UH!’  There are no words to describe what I feel only barks, yells and growls and that makes me feel even more like an animal, and it feels damn good.      As I near the end of the half hour I have one more large hill to climb.  Knowing I am close to the end makes me want to faulter, but my momentum will not be stopped by this final hill and I don’t slow down until I get to the top and begin going down it to a clearing.  I look again at my watch and see that I have just over a minute left.  I count down the final seconds to the one minute mark and then I take off in a sprint.  For the first 30 seconds I feel fresh, like a lion charging at full force, and then the exertion from the sprint catches up and I begin slowing while time completely stops.  ‘15 seconds.  I can do ANYTHING for 15 seconds!’ I prove to myself once again, tired or not I still have more in me and I give it everything I have to finish.     Usually I walk like a zombie heaving raggedly after a run like that, today I think about if I were training Muay Thai in Thailand, that would be a warmup before jumping rope, hitting pads, bags, and sparring.  Then I remember what it felt like in the gym, having to throw and take punches, kicks.  I used to throw up and have to stop.  Through training I have learned to control myself.  Now I continue to walk quickly with my head up and shoulders squared up a long and steep ramp, my heart is still racing and I am wearing the heat like a wet blanket.
        The cool down walk is over, I’ve stretched and gotten some water.  Now I am sitting in my truck with a slight headache and I can’t see straight for most of the drive home, but still, nothing else has made me feel this good all week.