Month: February 2021

I started a post last week but couldn’t manage to finish it. It felt forced. The words weren’t coming. So I scrapped it. Last week was quite a week anyway. Ended up being off of work after Monday because of technical issues and while I hate to admit how unproductive I was with the time off, I also really needed the break.

I started seeing a new therapist. It all happened very quickly and I feel 100% that it’s the right move for me. Progress had kind of stalled with my last therapist, but now I’m ready to dig in and do some more work so this new partnership will get me there and help me work through the issues that I didn’t realize were issues.

I had a really great week of workouts. My runs early in the week were fine, but they were just fine. This weekend though was fire. And in the process, I found mine again. Did a double workout on Friday for the first time in god knows how long. A strength workout, 5 round EMOM and I pushed myself harder than I can usually muster when I’m in the home gym. I was gassed by the end of the 35 minutes and had to give myself a bit before starting my birthday run–3.9 miles to ring in my 39th year. It felt soooo good to push like that.

Saturday I had my shorter long run with the group, we did 8 miles in the AM. It was cold, but we pushed through as much as we could given that some of the sidewalks aren’t touched in the city. Slightly sore, I still felt really good. After the run I got changed and met up with some of my friends for a birthday party at my favorite spot (and one of the very few places I feel safe going right now) and they surprised me with a new running watch–the Captain Marvel Garmin I’ve been wanting! I was NOT expecting that at all. I almost missed it in the bag of other assorted goodies! I love it. It’s so pretty and does so many things and the badges! Oh the badges!

Sunday I got to play with my new watch when I went out for my second long run of the weekend, 14 miles with a couple from my crew. I was sore AF but still felt really good (until near the end when my hamstrings and calves were screaming at me, but you’ll have that). Followed the run with breakfast pizza, beverages and a fire at my friend’s house.

Somewhere in the aftermath of it all the crisis of confidence I’ve been having lifted. I’ve GOT this. All I have to do is keep doing THIS. And THIS feels right and good to me. I can’t look back at who I was–I didn’t get to that place in a healthy or sustainable way, but I can build one hell of a future if I just keep moving forward. I CAN be better than I was without going backwards.

until next time, friends…

Last week was the first week of my newly revised training program. I did all but one workout–my strength session on Friday fell victim to a crappy day at work, though I was keyed up, by the time I got home my mental capacity for anything was just gone. Overall my runs were pretty solid though, so I’ll take it.

I’ve been in a weird place. Not really feeling like myself. And I guess with the pandemic and everything else going on in life that’s not unusual and should be expected. I’m on the cusp of starting over. New job. Rebuilding myself as an athlete. Impending divorce and move. Everything in my life is getting shaken up all at once, so my compass being a little off is to be expected. It has wreaked it’s fair share of havoc, though. And somewhere in this past week or so, some things have clicked as far as me putting pieces back together and building this new life. It’s going to be a lot of hard work. A LOT of hard work. Self-discipline has never been my downfall though, confidence always has been, and that’s where I am now. In some ways, the biggest breakthrough for me this week has been realizing that I need to stop worrying about “can I do it?” and just DO IT. Do all the little things that have worked for me before. Tweak some, sure, but the magic comes from DOING. Even when it sucks. Even when I don’t want to. Even when it feels pointless and stupid. Even when it’s hard. Even when I’m not sure if I can.

I’m choosing to look at this as an opportunity to re-make myself. Keep the parts I like. Change the things I don’t. Try some new things. Get out of my box. It’s as exciting as it is terrifying, but I’m going to DO IT.

Until next time…

So last week was a week. Wasn’t particularly bad, but coming to the end of my first month of training I was feeling some kind of way about my progress and how it was all going. While I’ve been pretty consistent with getting workouts in, I’m not making any real progress, at least not that I can tell. I’m not getting faster, I’m still taking a lot of breaks (mostly for mental reasons, but I haven’t been able to break the habit), and having time constraints on my only real goal for the year is making me nervous. I’ve always felt like 100 miles was a long shot, but BR in particular because it is a challenging course. If there were no time limits, I’d be fine. I have the utmost confidence in my ability to keep moving forward, if time was no object I would absolutely make it. But it IS. And my current road pace would not see me crossing the finish line. So I started freaking out.

After some wheedling I sent a message to my coach. I am TERRIBLE at advocating for myself. AWFUL. It’s one of the hardest things for me to do, for a lot of reasons (all of that is fodder for therapy and perhaps a different blog post on a different day…). And after the message we scheduled a call. Which I was nervous for all day because again, I’m terrible at advocating for myself. It was, in actuality, a very good call. Very productive, and I hung up feeling much better about things. We’re shaking up my training plan in a big, bad way–which both terrifies and excites me. She’s given me some mindset stuff to work on to rebuild my confidence.

I started working with a coach in the first place because I’m not someone who can push myself past certain limits. I get scared–of both failure and success–and I back down. An outside influence telling me to do something–and believing that I can–forces my hand. I’ve realized though that there is a fine line for me when it comes to training. I have to find the balance between working my ass off and not taking it too seriously. If I keep a “goal at all costs” mindset I will not succeed–the universe will pull me back, often just short of the goal. I had a really great season in 2019. Then 2020 happened and I really feel like I lost myself as an athlete. While I still ran consistently, I struggled a lot and I’m far from peak condition. (Another thing that my anxiety blows out of proportion–I’m not in peak race shape, but I’m also not 2 steps from an appointment with Dr. Nowzaraden. This isn’t a couch-to-100-miles journey like my brain makes it out to be.)

So today I have a workout after work that kinda makes me want to puke if I think too hard about it, but also excites me at the same time. And I’m just going to do my absolute best with it. Looking forward to seeing and feeling progress. We’ll see what happens by the end of this month.