It's Time

                                                    

Last weekend was long run weekend, as marathon training waits for no one.  Fifteen miles this time.  It is the furthest I have run since my first full marathon in January.  Admittedly 14 was rough the week before and I had serious doubts about 15 being any better.  Yet, I had a special medal to work for the coveted Helderberg to Hudson Half/Mohawk Hudson Full medal.  I decided it was time for strategy.  I was able to rally two of the runners I admire most to join me, or at least start with me, as they had their own runs to do.  We picked a new venue, a different trail across town I had only been on one other time.  Clearly, I partly struggled with 14 the week before because the trail I have run on all summer had grown stale.  That must be it.  I would arrive to the Rail Trail last week to a perfect day.  The sun was shining, my friends were there and off we went.  We would all take off at our own paces, but I would catch one of my friends on her way back in.  I was on mile six and feeling decent and she would run for a time with me just to encourage me.  Ah yes.  The beauty of belonging to an amazing tribe.  I would catch the second friend around mile 7  on her way back for a fist bump, and keep myself rolling.  I had enough water this time, and it already seemed better than the 14 I did the week before.  

So this is what you meant,

When you said that you were spent,

And now it's time to build from the bottom to the top

-"It's Time"                                                                 

Imagine Dragons                                                     

Oh yes, that is run was going great, until it wasn't.  There was a problem with this trail, the seven and a half mile jaunt out was a gradual hill.  Slow and steady gain in elevation like Chinese water torture.  I would hit the turn around realizing I was more tired than I should be at this point, suddenly worried about my real ability to finish.  Well, that and my irrational fear of snakes in that moment, elevated my heart rate when I ran into, what I would learn later was just a garter snake, right there on the trail at the turnaround.  My heart pounded, I felt winded and terrified, as my irrational brain made this thing out to be an 8 foot king cobra ready to strike right there on the Rail Trail in upstate New York.  The good news is, I was able to run ridiculously fast for a little bit late in mile 8.  Later, my friend would inform me she too saw it and was reasonably certain it was deceased.  No danger at all really, just a further energy sucker.  Nonetheless, I hit the next miles already spent, to where I finally had to, at mile 11, attend to the nagging voice in my head that had been present for weeks.  The one that said, "if 15 was this tough now, could I really do 26 in a month?"

I don't ever want to let you down

I don't ever want to leave this town

'Cause after all

This city never sleeps at night

                                           

It was time to get real.  Backing away from a marathon I signed up for months ago seemed like such a disappointment to me.  It would mean admitting to my motivational clients I was not ready.  Backing away from a challenge was generally not something in my inspirational wheelhouse.  However, I was not totally prepared for my first one.  As I slowed to a walk on mile 12, memories of mile 20 in Disney came back.  The moments I said out loud,"I just can't do this."  My feet hurt.  My back hurt.  My hips hurt.  I was miserable.  I was blessed with an amazing team that would never let me walk off the course.  This race was different though.  It was just me on the course.  Other than two faster runners doing the full, my whole crew was doing the half.  In that moment, I realized this question has fueled my chronic insomnia for some time.  What was I losing, outside of another medal, if I dialed it back to the half?  Well, I was risking the disappointment I would feel in myself plus running the risk of my clients' disappointment in me.  I finally bit the bullet right there on mile 12, took a deep breath and texted my accountability partner.  This was the hard part.  After weeks of pushing me through training I did not want to have this conversation.  

So this is where you fell,

And I am left to sell,

The path to heaven runs though miles of clouded hell,

right to the top,

Don't look back,

Turning to rags and giving the commodities a rain check

As I tend to do when I get nervous about talking about difficult things, I would text his ear off with my justifications for doing the half.  I wasn't letting down our accountability arrangement.  I was doing a half and doing it better. A Spartan Beast hovered around a half and it would make me a better Spartan racer.... I had a million comments....  see, my theory was if I kept talking he couldn't tell me I a being an idiot and should go for the full.  However, that diatribe was met with something totally different.  It was met with absolute support for changing trajectory to match the training I am currently doing well, rather than risking injury or taking on the misery that would surely accompany the full.  I would get the same response from my amazing tribe.  Honestly, I got nothing but support which made me wonder why I let this keep me up at night for so long.   So, in the end, without looking back, I have given the full marathon a rain check.  Not never, just not now. 

It's time to begin, isn't it?

I get a little bit bigger but then I'll admit,

I'm just the same as I was,

Now don't you understand,

I'm never changing who I am

As I walked through those last few miles last week, I felt relieved.  I had done better than a half the last two weekends.  I had the distance in the bag. Suddenly, the river was brighter, and mile 14 of the trail I was on was less like Chinese water torture and more like inspiration.  In the days that followed, I would throw all of my previous training plans away and start on something all new preparing for the half. Speed training, inclines, and suddenly it just was all easier. 

This whole experience makes me wonder how many times we get so caught up in chasing the bling and avoiding the disappointment of what we are not quite ready for, that we forget to celebrate where we are on the journey right here and right now.  Now I can't wait for next month. A race I have done before, on a trail I truly love, with a lot of my favorite people for a distance I can do well. Leaving the marathon on the table for now has done exactly one thing, added one fewer medal to the rack I don't look at all that often anyway.  I am learning that the challenge here is not made up of mileage, fancy medals or racing.  The real challenge is embracing our spot on this journey even if it means giving a  goal a rain check, and choosing to be the best current version of ourselves instead because, after all, the best is yet to come.