I have been a nurse practitioner for 16 years, the last six of which have been in an emergency room. Ah yes, the emergency room. It is a veritable cesspool of bacteria and viruses. Weeping abscesses, scabies, lice, pneumonia, strep, staph...the list of stuff we see is endless. The upshot? As ER providers we develop an immune system that is made of steel. I rarely get sick. However, once every few years I seem to get a case of bronchitis. This is particularly annoying, as it lingers forever and to be honest, nothing helps. Well, this year I drew that short straw. It began in the middle of April and I essentially coughed until about two weeks ago.
I refused to sacrifice my training as my fear of losing all that I had gained was stronger than my fear of coughing through a run. So, I kept training. I was medicated with an albuterol inhaler and other cold medicine and off I went. Admittedly my runs were slower. My rows not quite what they were in March. I found it frustrating as my lungs just would not allow me to go any faster as I would cough and sputter a bit. Plus, I had a terrible hamstring pull making things worse. I spent this time talking myself down off the ledge. I tried to employ the things I had learned through my hip fracture. I used the mantra,"it is a marathon, not a sprint." or,"bronchitis is not permanent. The hamstring will heal. This is temporary." I kinda settled in to where I was.
Finally, the coughing ended. The chest pain I had from said coughing went away too. Even my hamstring got better. So, I have spent the last two weeks telling myself that now that all of this was better I would simply have to rebuild. Keep running. You'll get there. That's what I told myself as I still ran slower than normal and feeling like I could do no more. I pushed the frustration away that I was not as good as I was at the beginning of April, figuring it would come with time. At least I wasn't coughing any more and the hamstring was pretty reasonable.
This leads me to Saturday. Saturday, I challenged my motivational health and fitness team to take the two months of training they had done and run a 5k in their own neighborhood. Runners in 13 states. I was one proud Mama Shark to see selfie after selfie of my baby sharks posted on my company page, who had accomplished so much in two months.
Well, then it was my turn. I was running an actual organized 5k with a larger team from the yoga studio, but more importantly two of my very own team members. I was a bit anxious in the morning as I knew they were faster runners than I was. I was afraid I would not keep up or somehow slow them down. The gun went off and we took off. I settled into pace with the ladies. After the first mile we were running just under 10 minutes. My fastest 5k was in November and I was around 34 minutes so I knew already I was faster out of the gate. This made me nervous. I had not run this speed in six weeks, and I had never run this speed for 3.2 miles. As we surpassed 1.5 miles I found all that fear made its way out of my head and past my lips. I was apologizing for slowing them down. I was telling them I needed to slow down. I told them I wasn't sure I could do this at this pace. Here I was. Mama Shark. Queen motivator and CEO of Team 1DOS repeatedly saying,"I can't."
I was blessed in those moments by two running partners who were clearly surprised to hear me say this. At one point, one of them looked at me and said,"who are you right now? Amy, you are not even breathing hard." I tried to assure her I was and she pointed out,"you're talking to me." She was right. Still, the fears and doubts followed me all the way to the finish line which I crossed at 31:05. A personal best for me. Somehow this was a bit of a hollow victory as I struggled to understand what had just happened. I talked it through with my two team members and running partners. I reminded them that I think the problem was I was bullied a lot when it came to running as I was growing up. Made fun of as I wheezed and coughed through junior high runs with my obese body.
My running partners assured me I was OK physically and maybe this was just old voices in my head. Then, they joked my old bullies were likely now middle aged fat men who could never consider a 5k like I had just done. Yesterday, I set out to test the theory. I got on the treadmill at Orangetheory for what turned out to be power day. Power day at OTF is quick explosive movements. On the treadmill this means a whole lot of push paces and lots of all out sprints. I decided I would put my 47 year old brain in the image of running that same trail we did back in the day. Put those bullies in middle aged men bodies on the side where they would stand and watch as I was the last to be finished. Only this time I got to be me. The me I am today. My 47 year old self proving finally I could do it to this band of misfits that made junior high gym so difficult. I kept hearing in my head,"you are fine. You are not even breathing hard." The voice of a valuable and trusted member from the day before.
You know, I ran. I ran really fast. I ran until I truly could not breathe for my sprints and found myself at 8.4mph for the fastest one. Yeah. Last week I ran those at 7 convinced I could not go any faster. Ummm....yes. They were right. Now it probably should be said here, one of my running partners is a psychologist. Anyway, after that workout I decided I had allowed the bronchitis to act like my coughing and wheezing from years ago. I had given the negative voices in the back of my brain a name. I called them bronchitis an hamstring pull and they held me back every bit as much as my bullied fueled low self image of my junior high days. By the way, the hamstring was fine after this.
This led me to think about how many times do we find reasons to not do more. Take the fear and negativity and call it something else. Something more socially acceptable rather than what it really is. The barriers that live between their own two ears fueled by years of self doubt and the simple belief that we can't even though the truth is we can. We may not always know we can, but we can.
So, the better question. Was I able to enjoy my PR of 31:05 finishing in the top 38% of my age group? Yes for about 5 minutes, because now that I know I was fine, sub 30 minute 5k....I am coming for you.
