Monday, Jan. 16, 2012
Potential setback... yuck.
It's so funny, all the ups and downs with this running thing. My life and myself are usually pretty "even keel"—but running seems to be providing some drama!
From Thursday to today, there has been a little bit of sliding back down the mountain. I had to miss my group run on Saturday, so I went to make up for it on Friday... and had a pretty bad run. I needed to do 6 miles, and I felt like it should not have been that hard. I didn't make it the whole way. I woke up sick on Sunday, and I think my lack of energy those couple days before (including Friday) was my body starting to try and fight it off. Another big issue was the fact that my calves were still SO tight after doing Insanity on Wednesday that I felt like I could barely lift my legs. I have really enjoyed doing the Insanity workout program since this past summer, taking a little time off over the holidays, but I am starting to wonder if I should be doing it at the same that I'm training for this half marathon. I can't imagine not doing either one right now because I love them both so much, but if Insanity is going to inhibit me that much in my training, even just from time to time, I might have a very hard decision to make...
The incomplete long run on Friday, then being out on Saturday, working all day yesterday and still being sick today are collectively setting me several days back. I'm hopeful I'll be well enough to do something tomorrow, but with being sick it's no guarantee. All of this probably could not have come at a worse time. I mentioned before that this coming weekend is when our group "long" runs will start becoming longer than I've ever been able to do on my own before. So every week from here on out is going to be more and more of a challenge. I was already a little anxious entering this week because of that, and now I feel like I'm coming into it BEHIND of all things—which only adds to that battle. So we'll have to see how it goes! What I don't want to do is start thinking "I can't" just because I'm behind. I love the quote that says: "Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly. But the bumble bee doesn't know this, so it keeps on flying anyway." Maybe if I press on with that type of disillusionment, the word "can't" will never creep in to my mental psyche. :) (And it just makes me laugh—I am totally a bumble bee out there trying to run a marathon! "Aerodynamically"... this should not be my sport. ;) )
I remember hearing a speaker at a conference once, talking about climbing to the top of Mount Everest. She said you would think you just start at the bottom and, though it takes a very long time, climb from there up to the top. But what actually happens, because your body has to get used to the altitude, is you climb to Base Camp 1... and then go all the way back down to the bottom. Then you climb up to the next station or camp... then turn around and go all the way back to the bottom again. This continues for I don't even know how long until you are finally at a place where you can climb forward to the top. So even when it seems like you are going in the complete opposite direction of where you are headed, it doesn't mean that progress isn't being made. In fact, it's actually all part of the process. That is what I'm trying to keep in mind right now...
On another note, I just have to share my most favorite conversation about training I've had yet. A friend and I were talking about music, and I asked her if she made a playlist specifically for her half marathon that she ran last year. (I'm pretty sure I will do this, but for now I've just been turning my iPod on "shuffle." I skip the songs that aren't motivating me at the time, and I get to hear ones I might not have thought to play.) She said yes and proceeded to tell me about choosing her finale song.
"Your what?" I said.
"My finale song," she repeated. She went on to explain the term as the song you play when you're at the end of your race, the one that's blasting as you come toward the finish line and finally cross it. What's funny is that I have actually thought about that before. Music motivates me so much that I have often pictured certain songs I hear as being the one that might have to get me through at the very end. I asked what hers was, and I absolutely love her answer. It's the song in the movie The Lion King when Simba is climbing up in front of all the other animals at the end in a really dramatic and powerful moment after he has taken back Pride Rock and is assuming his reign as king... YES!! Now THAT is a finale song!!! I think I may be stealing it. :)
There is one other thing I want to note about the past few days since my last update. I just want to record this so I can come back to it and read it... perhaps again and again. Just this morning I read the blog post of a friend who ran a FULL marathon on Saturday. That in itself is incredibly inspiring. She had been blogging about her training experience, and yesterday she wrote about the marathon itself. The first half of it was great apparently—but the second half was a total nightmare. She began to have extremely painful cramps around mile 13, and eventually they became so bad she had to starting walking around mile 19. She was all alone on the course (there were no volunteers or other runners around, in an area where no spectators were allowed), and it was a really bad set-up (you had to pass the finish line way before the race was actually over, and then there were several out-and-backs at the end where it seemed like it should be curving around and approaching the home stretch). She was miserable and felt completely defeated. After all that extremely hard work training to get to that point, she felt "robbed of an awesome first marathon experience." When her husband came to join her for the last several miles, she was in so much pain she was sobbing. With feelings of failure welling up, at one point she literally told him to just go get the car. But she didn't end up quitting, and she finished the marathon, even running the last two miles.
What is the most inspiring to me about this story is actually not the fact that my friend didn't quit. Yes, she can say that she completed a full marathon and never gave up. That is AWESOME and probably much more than I would be able to say. But what I have taken away from this more than anything is to not put so much pressure on race day. (I think I may have already starting doing that without realizing it.) I don't want to get to the day of the race and feel like none of it was worth it if I have a bad day. I want to still be able to include a beautiful prayer at the end of my "recap" like she did. It's made me realize I want to stop and really celebrate the victories along the way (like she did as well, making signs for the end of each next long run with the number mileage on them). I want to be able to appreciate the blessings and the lessons I have gained and continue to gain through this experience. I'll admit I have definitely thought about how awful it would be to wake up on race day and just have a bad day (which could absolutely happen). But if I start to cramp up or even have to walk some—when I know I could run 13.1 miles at that point in my training on any given day—I don't want to feel like it's the end of the world. What I am so thankful to be realizing this early on in my training is that it shouldn't even matter what happens on the day of the half. Those specific 13.1 miles are actually not what this is all about at all. Besides, I'm starting to learn that doing all this training is MUCH more impressive than a one-time 13.1 miles with your adrenaline pumping and tons of people cheering you on. (In fact, I believe that very much!) The preparation is a process where all the development, advancement, and refinement takes place. It's what gets you to where you can run farther than you ever imagined possible—sheesh, 13 miles!—no matter what happens on the one day when everyone happens to come to watch. The race itself is just an experience. The training is what shapes you and molds you—even what makes you a "runner." That status will not change based upon my performance on race day. I don't want to build that one day's experience up so much that it overshadows and robs the journey of getting there. Huge thanks to my friend for her honesty and for sharing her story!
*** On a side note, my husband has been experiencing a much greater setback than I, and while my blog is for personal life and these notes are about running, I can't help but to take the opportunity to ask for your prayers for his healing—physically and mentally. He has a torn left hamstring and a pulled right hamstring, and has been on crutches for 5 weeks. He is doing all the right things, and it's hard to understand why things seem worse right now after they were just starting to get better... Thank you for your prayers. ***
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