Road to Disney: What do you want from me?! (A Psychotic Exchange.)

Sometimes when the sun is shining down and the wind is blowing on me softly while I run, I close my eyes and I bring my arms down to my sides and open up my hands and face them palms up and just let my legs move and it feels like I'm embracing the run.

Like I can feel the breath of the world touching my skin and it feels like cotton.

I am not moving fast. But my legs are moving and I am breathing and the run becomes me.

It makes me feel alive.

And sometimes I listen to the music that I've brought and it's a song about a relationship and the singer is singing to someone else but so often I feel like the words apply to a person who's talking to themself and it makes me talk to myself because let's face it, we all are having relationships with ourselves anyway and normally it's our head versus our bodies.

We are one being, of course, but so often I think there is actually two of us in here and one of us is deciding "yes" and the other is deciding "no" and one of them is my head and the other one is my body and very often one has to physically force the other one into submission in order to get anything done and it could be either one of them that's ready to give in at any given moment.

And so because I find so much inspiration in meaning in songs and I normally find it in the oddest of places, I found myself talking to myself on yesterday's run and this time it was through Adam Lambert who wears more eyeliner than I do but it seems to work for him and it was through his song "What do you want from me?!" song, where the words are following and I'm sure he's talking to someone else but in this scenario I am not:

"Just don’t give up I’m workin it out
Please don’t give in, I won’t let you down
It messed me up, need a second to breathe
Just keep coming around
Hey, whataya want from me
Whataya want from me
Whataya want from me"

Which would mean to me, right around mile 4 where I have 4 more to run and I have already biked for more than an hour, right around the time my legs start becoming concrete stumps that my head now needs convincing that it's not ok to make this run shorter like it very much believes that it should, but instead I just need to catch my breath, not give in and keep going.

And then that thing in my head starts yelling "Whataya want from me!" and my body starts yelling back at it because now they're fighting, "To keep going dammit!"

And then it yells some more. "You wanna know what I want? I want you to finish this! I want you to shut your piehole and run! I want you to believe in yourself! I want you to get to the starting line! And then after that, I want you to get to the finish line! I want you to enjoy the sun and the wind and the beauty of this causeway with the water on both sides of you and I want you to enjoy this PROCESS because you have come so far! YOU'RE ABOUT TO DO A HALF-IRON! THAT'S what I want from you."


And then the voice calms down and I hear them talk back and forth.

"Just don’t give up on me
(uuuuuuh) I won’t let you down
No, I won’t let you down"

And then the very next song comes on and there are no words in that song (thankfully) so the voices in my head can stop yelling at each other and they cooperate to finish out the run and both of them look at each other and say, "There! Now was that so bad?"

Yesterday was the last day to drop down from half-Iron to Olympic.

But I didn't.

Less than two weeks to go.

Full steam ahead. And then there will be Disney.

And if you ever wonder what someone's thinking when you pass them while they're running, refer to the previous psychotic exchange.

There might be nothing much to see on the outside. But there is a lot going on up there.

Trust me.

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Three giveaways ending tomorrow. THREE! Here's the list, go get em!