Eye of the tiger

Session: early morning run (5.43am)

Distance: 14km
Time: 1hr 23.14min
Av pace: 5.52min/km
Cals: 872
Weather: 9*c, wind – N, 6kph so a cool but pleasant morning.

I was channelling Rocky on this morning’s run. Don’t ask me why. I didn’t wake up and think “It’s the eye of the tiger, its the thrill of the fight, risin’ up to the challenge of our rival…”, and punch the air before getting out of bed. I wasn’t even thinking Rocky when I started running.

But about halfway into the run, an image of Rocky running the streets in his trackies and hoodie popped up. Goodness knows why, it’s been years since I’ve seen the movie and its all a bit vague. Maybe I was feeling tired and it was feeling all a bit same old same old. But I remember when Rocky was running the streets as part of his training and of course the scene when he runs up the steps to the entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to “Gonna Fly Now”. Which by the way makes a great running mantra – “trying hard now, it’s so hard now, trying hard now. Getting strong now, won’t be long now, getting strong now. Gonna fly now, flying high now, gonna fly, fly, fly.”

Well there was no running up steps this morning but the image of Rocky running the streets inspired me to hang in there and keep going. Gosh, I might’ve even done a couple of fist pumps just because…

Maybe I should download Eye of the Tiger or Gonna Fly Now to my iPod for inspiration.

“The world ain’t all sunshine & rainbows. It’s a very mean & nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees & keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit & keep moving forward. How much you can take & keep moving forward. ‘Thats how winning is done’.” – Rocky

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