Here's my swag from the Valentine's Day (Ok, February 13) 5K race around Lake Harriet. Apparently it's the oldest winter race in the cities? Or something that distinguishes it for being extraordinarily cold and unpleasant?
It was about 0, -1 outside when I began to run at 10 am. I'm only just now getting over the damage the cold air did to my throat, but it still hurts quite a lot.
My time was 24:03, which is a PR for me, hooray! It's 2:30 slower than my goal, but... what can you do, at the end? I'll tell you, I wish I had pushed harder at the end, just to grab on to a few more seconds.
However, to even get close to the end, I needed the help of someone else. Someone landed by my side at the second mile and began cheering me on. At first I thought he had just come up and crashed at my pace, which had taken a bad hit. Then he started to say small things whenever I started to choke, or slow down.
Someone once told me that my main character flaw is pride, and I would wholeheartedly agree with this. I was cheered up by this person telling me to keep going, and I was also damned if I was going to fall behind and give up.
It was a hard race for me, both physically and mentally. The raw cold was hard to push through, and really did damage me. Luckily yesterday, when I felt the sickest, I was at my sit-down job and could quietly process files in the basement. Being alone at the race was hard too, everyone that I thought was going to run with me, didn't. Being alone at the end sucked. Which is kind of weird, because I like this sport for the fact that for the large part, you can do it solo. Team sports always freaked me out because I couldn't do them well, and I feared being the weak link (again, pride!). But also, being beholden to someone's standard, to have someone there who wants me to succeed, is a big motivator.
I want to be good enough. I want to be worth it, because so often, I feel like I'm not worth fighting for. I'm not worth anyone's effort. It's not about... hitting a number, but about showing up. The biggest gift ever given to me is time. I want to be worth someone's time, and I want to be worth my own time, because if I stop feeling good enough or worthy of myself, I know I'm going to stop showing up. And I definitely don't want to clock out of my own life.
So to that unknown person who saw me, and stopped, and took the time and helped me along, I feel one hundred percent gratitude.
And then I came to the in-between, where I don't have to run again (until tomorrow) and I let EVERYTHING slide. I also stopped exercising for 3 days, and on the 4th day (yesterday) I couldn't believe how much my body had backslid. It was really shocking. Especially since I finally started to see cuts on my legs... and then my body decided to eat my beautiful muscles! It's not fair, those are my muscles and I want them back!
Stupid in-between period. I know I need the rest, but I also know that I'm not at a point that I can really rest without experiencing a big loss of condition.
But having started up again, I feel instantly better. It's pretty magical!!
I'm excited to start running again tomorrow. I've got my calendar all printed up and marked up for the next 5 months, it's brilliant. I told someone that once I was done in July, I'd take a break and start pursuing other projects, maybe do something creative, but... already I'm looking up fall and winter races, thinking about revisiting Rails to Trails, etc... It's a terrible running disease!
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