It wouldn't be an accomplishment if I didn't have to really work at it right? It wouldn't be an accomplishment if I didn't experience ups and downs in my training. Gee! Sounds like another life's lesson....... No growth without discomfort......
I'm discouraged. My marathon is a tidge over a month away. So many times I've wanted to quit. So many times I've wanted to just say, "It's just a stupid race! Who cares?! People run marathons all of the time! What's the big deal?! It's just a stupid race. There are bigger more important things you could focus on instead of spending all this time training!" I've wanted to quit so many times.
I've been injured several times. Discouraging. I want to quit. I've kept training. I asked a friend to help me with my training. Someone to be accountable to and to help me with cross training on my 'rest' days. P.S. There's no rest days. It just means you're not running that day. Instead, you are lifting weights and doing push-ups and looking the fool because you can't do one pull-up.
I'm injured again. I thought I had shin splints but it doesn't feel like shin splints. Need to go and get an x-ray to see if I've done something like a hairline fracture. Discouraged. 26.2 miles seems so far. I'm so close in my training. I want to quit. I want to cry. I don't want to fail.
I didn't do anything growing up that I felt was note worthy. I wasn't in anything that required parents to come and watch. I did horribly in school. I've no education higher than high school. My whole purpose in life and pride and joy is my family. My husband and my children which it should be!!!!
What I'm trying to say is, this is a stupid race. It's not a big deal. Hardly anyone will know if I did or didn't do it. Shoot! My brother runs marathons all of the time! No one goes and cheers him on....... we should!! It's a dumb race, but it is my race, and it IS a big deal to me. I've worked so hard to get where I am and now I'm injured and in a holding pattern until we find out what is wrong.
It's about pride. It's about self esteem. I know I've done amazing things with my family. I know there is no higher/better accomplishment than the success of my family. Is it bad to want to run this race, to prove...... what?? That I'm still fighting?? That West Nile isn't going to beat me?? Why the heck is this so important to me?? Ever day I battle the urge to throw up my hands and quit. Training for this has been so hard! Why am I running this marathon??
There's been highs and there have been lows. I need to hold onto the highs and remember that while I'm in this low that it will get better and even if I have to walk the whole 26.2 miles I will do it for one reason and one reason only. To finish. To finish what I started. Even if I walk across a finish line that is no longer there because everyone went home hours and hours before. Even if I don't get a medal that says, "Finisher" on it because the people handing out medals are gone. Even though I want to quit. I'm near tears. Even if no one sees me finish. I WILL FINISH!
Oh, Rachel....you are one of my heroes. I only know one other person who has run a marathon and he's a college senior who hardly trained at all...that's not heroic.
ReplyDeleteTraining when its hard is the heroic part.
Knowing you are training gives me a reason to remember to pray that West Nile gets it's butt kicked....
And I'm telling you right now and I mean it....if you for one second think that no one will be there at the end of your race..then I will fly out there.
Heck if you are going to be as slow as you keep saying, you could call me mid race and I could hop a plane and be there by the end, right?
I could go on and on and on about how proud of you I am, but I'm sure others will want to chime in to tell you the same thing! You are loved!
You will finish!
Donna!!! You are making me laugh and cry at the same time which if one must cry well, laugh while I'm at it yes??
DeleteYou are a dear and now I am laughing again at your comment saying if I called half way through my race you'd still make it in time. It's true!!!! You could make it here, stop at some boutiques on the way, have some dinner....... get a pedicure...... and still make it! :D
My Mum, The SM, and The Natives will be there. I won't be alone. They may have to set up tents and camp awhile but they'll be there. :)
I think there is an old word,,,French???...that means 'laughter through the tears'....
DeleteYou do the same for me - laugh/cry with your big honest vulnerable heart. Gonna see if I can find that word...
I think the word is, "Cannoli". ;)
DeleteThat sounds more Italian....but could be.... :-) I couldn't find it anywhere. Used to have a cool book of old words. Words like BOONFELLOW - a good friend and FELLOWFEEL - one who understands you. So, I named my old dog Boonfellowfeel....a good friend who understands me! And he was all that.
DeleteWhere is Kristen and all her words when we need her?
Giggling. Google the word cannoli :D
DeleteI love that you named your dog Boonfellowfeel! What a perfect name for a four legged friend and companion.
OH, I know cannoli....don't think I have ever tried one, but I have seen them!
DeleteHave a dozen or so after you FINISH the marathon!
So many things in a mothers life are ALWAYS unfinished. You cook a dinner. You have to do another one the next day. You finish the laundry. Except the clothes they are wearing now are dirty already. You clean a house. And somebody messes it up. I do my projects, furniture and such, so I can say IT IS DONE! I FINISHED! You want to run a marathon! Makes perfect sense to me. Well, except for the actual "run a marathon" thing...I mean, why would anyone want to DO that???
ReplyDeleteYES! You said it! So many unfinished things!! As to why anyone would want to DO that (I'm smiling as I type this because I can hear your voice as you typed that), I HAVE NO IDEA!! What is wrong with me?? Even I don't get it! :D
DeleteDoes it help if I say I know how you feel? Why is this so important to me? Why did I decide to do this? I want my life back. Are the sacrifices going to be worth it? Can I hang in there just a little bit longer? Will I ever stop feeling like I'm stressed out of my mind - even when it's over? I could go on, but you get the point.
ReplyDeleteThere may be nothing more important than your family, but that doesn't mean you - individually - aren't important too. If this is something you really want to do for YOU, then do it! Don't let discouragement re-decide your desires. You are at mile 21 right now. Push through the wall. And if you need a training friend, I might be able to pitch in with that - after Wednesday.
Guess what. My marathon ends the same day as yours? I think this is significant. Assuming you get past the injury - I won't quit if you won't. And then we'll really celebrate. Ok?
DeleteIt does help you telling me this! I appreciated your post this morning on FB. I had that song running through my mind as I headed out to run this morning.
DeleteYou've got two days to get your cute workout/training clothes on!! :D Thursday is coming fast.
Start making plans to celebrate because I aint quittin'. May take me longer but I'm not giving up! Even if I have to walk the whole darn thing!
DeleteArgh! Be a good sport? You know I'm not good at that...... ;)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your kind words about my family. I love them so much! I've felt guilty, the amount of time this training has taken me away from them. Not just time but energy. Maybe they'll appreciate seeing me do something that is really hard though. I've tried to teach them that they can do hard things and to never give up. Actions speak louder than words............. Mama is committen! :D
My darling, silly idiot. There is nothing I can say that will change your perspective, or I'd already have done it. " I've no education higher than high school." Hands open, head shaking - this is significant? I've had six years of university and dropped out of a master's program because when it came down to it, the work was so MEANINGLESS. You and I can talk nonstop for hours. So explain to me how this wail should make me feel sorry for you??? I respect your intellect, your heart, your perception FAR MORE than many, if not most, of the multiple degree holders I know. So if THAT were a race, you'd have a big, fat trophy. But you don't see that. You don't see the races you've already won, hands down. I was third chorus member from the left in my New York high school production of Once Upon a Mattress, and my parents came to see that. I was first flute SECOND section in my band, and my mother dragged my father, kicking and screaming, to our few concerts. Woo-HOOOO!!!! Accomplishments my parents came to see. I have a first row seat to watch you manage a dynamic household full of great kids - and I paid for my ticket years ago - and I am never tired of watching the Master Human Being at work. If kindness, service, compassion, tolerance, passion, skill in the hands, hospitality, faithfulness, selflessness and beauty were a race, you'd have been in the front of the pack in every one of them. For decades. But we don't race for those kinds of things. We live them. Nobody watches, because there's no way of tallying - and besides, the rest of us are in a tight pack so far behind, all we'd be watching are the heels, behinds and flying hair of the joyful, dogged runners miles ahead - where you are. You deny all these things. How do you expect to have self-esteem when you refuse to see the things at which you excel? Don't you prize good humor? Stubborn faithfulness? Humility? Don't you think service, kindness, loyalty, imagination, creativity are significant? I was just thinking yesterday how Jules is doing patterns for her animals now, but how YOU started us on this knitting thing years and YEARS ago because you saw a huge, floppy rabbit in a store window - loved it for MS. K, did not buy it but went home, and within a few weeks, had made one yourself, cobbled out of ideas and patterns that weren't exactly what you wanted - knitting a complexity when you hadn't knitted anything for ages - if ever. That seems a small thing, a child'd toy - but the process of seeing, planning, research, imagination, vision of concept, determination, love, invention - these are things few women you know can say they actually have a handle on. To you, it looks like blundering. But baby, that's what artists do. But most artists are turned inward - you are turned so outward, I worry there will be nothing of you left in the end. You admire Jules for these things - why can't you see it in yourself? If we physically grew to match the fidelity and soundness of heart and soul, you could carry me. You already do - and half the ward. So shut up and stop whining about - yes - some stupid race. You have won a million already, and it will never be enough for you to see yourself as the comet you are.
ReplyDeleteWhat a pair we are. Try seeing yourself the way you see me. Idiots of a feather swoop together. Have you got swallows tonight? We do. A whole swoop of them, dancing in the twilight.
DeleteWhat a pair indeed!! I've no idea if we had swallows. I was busy this evening certifying girls for Girl's Camp. Freezing, windy, and cold out there!!!!!
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