Fitness Blah-g

I ran 5.5 miles yesterday. woot. I thought I was going to die. I was in that mental state where one voice was saying, "why are you working so hard? Can we walk now?" And the other was pushing for 30 more seconds. ugh. It's mentally exhausting. I finally got into my tunes and started to enjoy myself in the last 15 minutes. I even pulled off my target race-pace, 6.7 mph (8.57 min/mile). Yay!

And today's little post-run treat? Everything between my knees and my ankles is the Land of Ouch. Anyone who says it's the "Good Pain" is just being silly.

Later last night I was talking to a young man that I've known for 20 years. He's 28 now, going back to school to get into fitness stuff and thinking about doing triathlons. We talked about mental toughness, which got me to thinking about my morning run.

Sometimes mental toughness is just getting up on time in the morning. Sometimes it's taking the next step on the hike/run/walk when you'd rather be napping. Sometimes it's taking a deep, calming breath before losing your temper. Sometimes it's receiving criticism calmly and with an open mind when you didn't even realize there was a problem.

The thing about mental toughness is that you don't get there by accident just like you don't run 5 miles by accident; you get there because you have to work up to it which means life has been training you up and it probably wasn't fun.

So today as I head over to my Assertiveness training class, I am sending out kudos to all the people who are mentally tough. Because you rock.

Foreign Land: Assertiveness Training.

I spent 8 hours in an Assertiveness training class for women. I was EXHAUSTED by the time we were done.

At the outset the teacher said something like, "Take this sticky note. If you need to become more assertive, put a capital letter "A" on it. If maybe you've been told you're too aggressive or you need to take the edges off, put a little "a" on it. Put your sticky on the board."

So in this fashion we anonymously communicated to the teacher what her audience was looking for and I happily discovered that the class could accomodate me; otherwise she would have never done that little exercise, right? yay.

Unfortunately, I was the only little "a" out of 17 attendees. I've never been so completely a foreigner in a foreign land.

These women didn't know how to say, "no".
They suffer, "The disease to please."
These women don't know how to establish boundaries.
These women would rather keep silent instead of disagreeing in a meeting because they fear (!!) creating tension and confrontation.
These women would never give someone else feedback on their behavour/performance.
They said they would rather withdraw into themselves rather than provide suggestions in a work environment because of the risk of being wrong.
They don't make direct eye contact.

I was uncomfortable and possibly in a state of shock all day. My brain was exhausted by trying to see through their eyes. Of course, my knee jerk reaction was to tell them, "Are you guys nuts? Tell that asshole "Hell to the no" and get on with your lives." Fortunately for one and all, I restrained myself and kept my Type-A, assertive, direct behaviour in check all day, which was also exhausting.

I talked to the teacher at lunch because I was concerned about what I was going to get out of this seminar. If I wasn't going to get anything, I could drop out, save myself $10/day in BART tix, and entertain myself at home. So I outed myself, "I'm your Little A." She laughed. We chatted. Apparently I'm now a teaching aid, she asked that I share with the class, and she spent at least half an hour recommending stuff for me and forecasting which parts of the seminar I would probably get the most from.

So I'm hanging in. I started sharing my strategies and techniques after lunch. 17 pairs of eyes were on me because I was the oddity. During exercises the 5 at my table started practicing their assertiveness techniques on me, which was weird once I realized that all of them were practicing on me. I felt like I was the man-eating tiger and they wanted to see if they could meet my eyes without flinching. I worked super-hard on not lashing my tail or showing fangs. LOL. I also worked at not judging them based on their shyness; at trying to see the world through their eyes and emotional hang-ups. I wonder if the other tables feel cheated out of their own "Little A Assertiveness Practice Partner". Every now and then I'd look up from our group and ladies at other tables would be watching me.

I definitely felt like a foreigner in a foreign land.