Midweek Motivation: Get Lost

It's been almost two months since my BRF and I have been on a run together. We both have crazy busy lives and even though we work across a sidewalk from each other, it can be impossible sometimes to make our schedules gel enough to get out of the office at the same time. So today, we decided we needed to meet up, no matter what that looked like. While we didn't run together, we had coffee together, which is sometimes WAY better. We got caught up on work gossip, kid gossip, husband gossip, and finally run gossip. She's been keeping up with my saga of bad runs and new plans, so it was nice to finally get her perspective on things. She knew what I needed to hear. She validated that I am insanely competitive and need to have an order to follow, she concurred that I need to do a better job of listening to my body and giving myself a break, and she told me to get lost.

She more than anyone knows my trepidation about running routes I am not intimately familiar with. In fact, the only time I veer from my well known paths is when I am running with her, because she is like a human road map when it comes to knowing every loop and trail around this place. But she had a good point, I'm supposed to enjoy running, and how can I do that when I am looking at the same piece of pavement day in and day out? She reminded me that I run with my phone, which is equipped with a GPS, so I'm never really going to be LOST and she pointed out how many amazing parks and trails and sidewalks and neighborhoods I'm missing out on exploring. So today, I took some baby steps. Instead of running my regular 4 mile loop around campus, I veered off the trail for awhile and ran around downtown Minneapolis, it wasn't much of a detour, but enough to make me a little nervous and also to feel a little invigorated. I made note of a couple cute little restaurants I passed by, I got to see the new Vikings stadium up close and personal, and I even got honked at :) So, my challenge for you this week is to get lost...you never know, you just might find something amazing!