Setback after Setback
Tomorrow I’m going to attempt another workout. By the time this post comes out, I might have already failed or succeeded. But at least I’ll know.
My legs feel good. I want to hurt, but not in the way I did Tuesday. I want my lungs to catch up, but I know forcing them is out of the question.
So I’ll just try.
I’ll show up.
I’ll start and hopefully be able to hang on for as long as I can. It’s me and my ladies tomorrow. The OG group, Red Newt, just Bailey, Chelsea and I.
We can do this. I can do this.
I write to process things that I just cannot talk about yet. Things I need to funnel out of my brain and sort through. It’s almost like a farmer taking a rake to a field of soil, marking rows where she wants to plant.
That’s how I feel when I write. I’m organizing the dirt. I’m making it neater, more open, more ready to change.
To be honest, it doesn’t make anything easier. Tomorrow will still be hard. My lungs might not be ready. If I fail, I’ll still take it pretty hard. I always do.
My sport is silly. It builds me up and tears me down. One moment I’m happy just to be running at all, and the next a few seconds off a pace or a missed interval invites a cloud of self pity that I cannot shake. It doesn’t help that every sniffle, every blown nose, every sneeze is a reminded of my chest cold and limits. That never gets easier.
The past few nights I’ve had short dreams about the past. I see myself like I was ten years ago. A shell of who I am now, still digging herself out of a hole trying to figure out meaning. If only I knew searching for meaning and happiness was, like running, silly. It doesn’t exist where I look, it comes to me when I allow myself to be content.
In my dreams I see my past and it’s enough to scare me into preventing it from becoming my future. It scares me enough to remember to keep my eyes above. Above the ground, above my body, and toward the light. Because that light, my life, my relationships, my self, is so worth it.
I am so worth health. I am so worth the pleasure of running, to choose my suffering. I am so worth the contentment and happiness I’ve found. My dreams remind me how far I fell, and how far I’ve come.
But really, how far I’ve come, that is rather meaningless as well. I dislike discussing past accomplishments, the good old days, because I don’t believe my best days are behind me. Regardless if I get faster or not, if I keep running or not, I believe my best days, my happiest and most fulfilling are yet to come. I appreciate the struggles I’ve gone through in that they’ve made me who I am, but I’ve also decided to keep them in my past. They do not hold me back anymore. Dreams do not have power over me, they simply serve as a reminder to keep on my path. To live my truth. To be me.
This cycle of training has been very interesting. I can say it’s been fun and I’ve learned a lot, but mostly it’s helped keep me humble. I dealt with an IT band, it’s really cold here, I continue to be last in workouts, I’m not putting up impressive times even though I’m trying just as hard. This is what being a professional is. I’m getting a taste of it. Not the “I’m so fast part” but the UGH part. The seasons we forget a pro name because they aren't racing. We forget because there’s always another pro to follow. We don’t see all the work they put in so 6 months to a year later they come back with a big PR. We see them crush it, then crush it again a year later when we weren’t paying attention to them.
To us, it seems like they just keep getting better. To them they see a fall from grace, setback after setback, small moments that remind them they have a chance, but mostly they see themselves as shit. Then they have a breakthrough, and it’s wonderful and everything was worth it.
My development needs this too. In my own small way, in my small world and daily training that only means something to me, although I hate it, failing, being humbled, just feeling meh, I need to feel it.
Not saying I’ll go searching for it, but when it comes, I need to feel it. Because I will run forever if my body allows, and PR or not, OTQ or not, that means something. Meaning isn’t what I’m searching for, nor is it everything, but it does add to my life.
I write to tell myself what to do. To process, but also to provide instruction to my number one, myself. This is how I will frame tomorrow:
I will show up
I will try the first interval
I will hold on as long as I can
I will cheer for my teammates
I will stop if my chest hurts
I will NOT beat myself up too much
I will try again
See you on the other side