Wow. September 21. Yep that's the date of my last blog post, more than a full month ago. I guess you could say life got in the way. Working in a leadership role in a rapidly growing urgent care that offers COVID testing during a pandemic has proven for long days, and lots of hours. I suppose the sheer amount of work to be done has also put a damper on my creative juices to a degree as well, so there you have it. A month blog free. However, tonight I find myself finally at my desk with a few hours off. Admittedly, the craziness of the last month has left my desk in shambles. There are scraps of papers left over from me working on schedules, lists of things for Foundation related activity and in the far right corner a medal. A Mileage Monsters 5K medal from last Saturday. It was our second annual 5k fundraiser for my 1DOS Foundation. All things considered, we had a good turn out of 110 socially distanced runners. Everyone played by the rules, masks on, no gathering before or after, and courteous running. In all, a fun time for all in one of the first live events of 2020.
But this medal.... my partner and I had a love/hate relationship with this medal. Last year we set out to be creative. Who needed another 5k medal anyway? Oh no. We had kick ass swag bags and awesome shirts. Oh weren't we cool? Apparently not. The feedback we got from one runner in particular was she would never have run the race without earning a medal. Several others were on the same page. So, this year we had medals. We had $300 worth of medals. Granted they were pretty cool, but I have spent a long time trying to understand what it was about it that was so important about a medal coming from a small time inaugural 5k. In fact, as I sit here, all of my medals hang to my right. Spartans, marathons, half marathons, Disney medals.... now those were medals.
Suddenly it dawned on me who it was last year that was so disappointed by her swag bag. It was our last finisher. She did not appear to be an athlete and our photographer explained she was part of a bigger 5k series where runners were to complete 20 5k's in a season. This particular participant always managed to finish, albeit usually last. She appeared to be an unlikely candidate to finish 20 5k's and would guess maybe she had not done that before. Gaining 19 medals instead of 20 perhaps destroyed the visual representation of the accomplishment of a bigger goal she set for herself.
As I scan through my own medals now I see my very first Spartan medal. The Fenway Sprint of 2016. I was terrified at the start line. I was surrounded by badass racers and here I was 46 years old, fresh off a lifetime of obesity, not totally sure I belonged there or that I could even finish. The gun went off and we took off through the park. People were faster than me. Some did the obstacles better than I did. My son had to constantly say,"just run your own race." He was right. In the end, I would finish and burst into tears on the infield. I had done it. A year of training reflected in one hunk of medal on a colorful ribbon. I'm quite certain if I looked at the medal closer there may in fact, be salt stains on said ribbon. There was my first Spartan Beast ribbon from summer of 2017, where five of us took on my longest race at the time. Twenty miles on the side of a mountain. Physically and mentally taxing. Yes, that medal meant a lot to me. Still other medals reminded me of fun times spent with a race team I would describe as second to none. There were Ragnars, half marathons, 10k's, and even two full sets of Dopey medals reminding me further what normal years look like for me.
However, this year, as we all know, racing is largely cancelled. From my girls' weekend half marathon in the Hamptons, to the Boilermaker in Utica, to a Spartan Super in Denver, to what was to be the pinnacle race of the year for me, the Spartan Beast in Tahoe, all cancelled. A veritable racing silence. For as much as I miss racing the various events, in their absence I came to realize something. I over commit. I sign up for everything I can with my tribe, which is awesome, but I effectively have become the proverbial athletic Jack of all trades, master of none. I'm not fast, I'm not the talented obstacle racer like you see on Ninja Warrior, I have stayed where I was planted after that first race. I am a finisher. I earned that first Spartan medal fair and square. A year and a half of training, a lifetime of obesity and an epic finish. Hell, I even earned that first trifecta medal fair and square, but what has happened since?
I have remained a finisher. I have trained the same with an amazing gym family and have gone on to finish 15 other obstacle races, two Dopey Challenges, umpteen half marathons and a smattering of 5k's and 10k's, and have the medals to prove it, but here's the question. What have I CRUSHED? Crushing a race and completing a race are two different things, and as long as I am asking, what would it take to crush a course? As I talked it all over with my accountability partner it became obvious. Finishing a race for the first time was awesome, but by the 15th time I find myself now asking,"shouldn't I be better at this by now?" and better yet,"Do I want to be better at this?"
As anyone with a good accountability partner will tell you, they always say the thing you think you don't want to hear, but is the best for you anyway. Yes. I should be better, but despite training hard, my training has not changed. Stuck in my proverbial comfort zone maxing out my abilities within those confines. As far as did I want to be better? of course. Who doesn't? It's the bigger hurdle of what that is going to take. That is something I am learning. It's going to take dialing back the commitments, and changing what I normally do because,"if nothing changes, nothing changes." So, today I took the plunge. Stepped away from my usual workout for my first private session with an awesome tactical OCR coach. I learned about breathing, bracing, grip strength and that I was way stronger than I gave myself credit for. A little glimpse that with the right type of help, hard work and second to none training partners I will continue to take newbies to races as watching someone else find their own success is a passion of mine, but personally? It’s time to work my way past finisher and right into obstacle race CRUSHER next year, and no. There better not be a bag of swag. I will save a space for a kick ass medal that will remind me there is always something bigger to reach for and in doing so I will always see the best is yet to come.
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