Sweating My Prayers

The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.
-Robert Frost


Finally I returned to the Dipsea Trail today after a two week respite. I did not stop training, but did miss the stairs that still have me up at night wondering why I am committing to this self torture. Today I was again reminded of the euphoric feelings associated with pushing yourself beyond what you thought possible and surviving to bask in the glow.

It was good for me to get out. It has been raining for most of the week and, while I have been busy and social, I have not actually gotten out of the house much. I have been overly introspective and have been drowning in the intensity of my own thoughts.

As I started out this morning, the rain catching droplets in my hair, I felt freer that I had in days. Running gets me out of my head; I run till I can't think anymore. Being physical balances me as nothing else can. At no other time is my mind as clear as it is after being wiped clean by the sheer force of my exhalations echoing my inhalations. Sometimes I actually feel I am running from my thoughts, running as fast as I can, knowing the strength of my legs can outlast my moods and my mind delivering me from their mire.

Today I got a babysitter, headed for the hills, and ran like hell. My thoughts caught back up with me, but they are softer now, and feel much freer. Running to your very end is the perfect antidote to overthinking.

Free Falling

It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
-Anonymous

I woke up this morning with a jolt, it hitting me that I have said (out loud, mind you) that I am preparing for an athletic feat involving scaling not one, but several mountains, and that I am not only trying to survive it, but race it!

This morning, the part of me that enjoys more...shall we say...hedonistic activities...caught word of my commitment and said WTF? You're going to WHAT?

I don't know why it took so long for this other part of me to realize my plans, maybe she was a bit in denial. But she is no longer and she is on a mission to abort this little dream of mine.

She knows all my weak spots and makes big digs regarding the facts that I am not particularly athletic and have never raced. Ever. How hard it will be to train with a wildcard 2-year-old and husband gone half the time. She knows how to get to me. She taunts me, plays with my mind, beckons with wine and chocolates, a cozy couch, and food TV.

But the more motivated, healthy, enthusiastic, perhaps a bit annoyingly bouncy and tiger-ish part of me has weaponry of its own. Everything I have ever done that I have been proud of I didn't think I could do. I was scared of it. I didn't know how to do it. But every time I realized if I just jumped in and did it rather than over-think it, I could do it.

My philosophy thus far is that all you need to have is the courage to begin, to throw yourself over that edge, over that cliff of disbelief. Once you are falling, you can figure out the rest. The courage is in beginning.

I know this philosophy is not for everyone. It is kind of extreme. I am kind of extreme. I have spent quite a lot of my life throwing myself over cliffs, so to speak, knowing that once I had begun, I could figure out the rest. But it is a working philosophy and can be applied to all kinds of things. Mostly it requires a lot of faith and the courage to jump.

Today my alter ego made herself known, made her arguments, enticed me with her charms. But even she knows I am already gone; I am already in free fall.

Painful Epiphanies

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
-Kahlil Gibran

I had my second training session this Sunday. I decided I could go a little faster, push myself a little harder, and I took a third of the stairs two at a time. By the time I got to the top, I was close to throwing up. My legs shaky, my mind numb from the pain.

I pushed through it and tried to run through the breaks from the stairs. I tried to run after the stairs. I could not. Those first two at a time taken stairs had left their indelible mark.

I was not strong enough.

How am I going to run this race without making a fool of myself when I can't even take one flight of the 672-odd steps fast?

The answer to this question is a lesson I have never learned and is crucial for the next phase of my life: to grow naturally a little at a time. A seed does not bear fruit the first day it is planted. Likewise, I will not be strong enough to run all of the Dipsea stairs the second time I train. I will get stronger a little at a time. Naturally.

I had this epiphany a few days later. And, while I am more committed to this race than ever, I am scared. But in that fear of pain, of growing, of trusting myself and my body, of trusting the process of all life and growth, there is great wisdom to be had. I know I am growing in more ways than just physically, through the pain of exertion, I know that I am growing in understanding.

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