Did you spend your lunch running in the sunshine, wondering how the sky can be so blue and how your thoughts can be so dark? How you can be so happy and free and sad and loved and lonely all rolled into one big gulp? How you notice the yellow in the dandelions and the smell of gasoline mixed with freshly cut grass? How when your mind wanders away from the heat and niggles of pain that your stride picks up and all nuisances are forgotten?
That it seems like the perfect day for a cheery melody, but you cannot drag yourself away from diving into those feelings and swimming amongst the tears hidden by your sunglasses.
________
They say that one of the benefits of travel is all the new things you encounter that create new pathways in your brain. As you navigate the unfamiliar, all these new experiences force you out of your comfort zone. Some are a little more painful than others as you hope you're standing in the correct line for passport control or the drysuit you're wearing is indeed zipped in all the correct places.
But if you keep your mind open to all the things that could be wonderful, it can lead to magical experiences. Some of it is trusting your gut, i.e. asking your private tour guide to go to lunch. Some of it is blind luck, i.e waking up early to a gorgeous sunrise. Some of it is fueled by fomo, i.e. choosing the last kayak spot because you were afraid to miss out. Some of it is just allowing yourself to believe everything is a gift - the scenery, the wildlife, the people, the food, the opportunity to be doing that exact thing at that exact time.
Was it perfect? Absolutely not. But perfect is not only unrealistic, but boring. Often the things that don't go as planned are the memories we hold onto. And the secret is to laugh through the thunderstorm because usually whatever is happening is beyond your control at that point anyway.
_________
Shorts with long-sleeve shirts. A perfectly ripe avocado. The sun streaming through stained glass. Waves lapping against a creaky dock. Submerging shoulders in a hot bath. An afternoon nap with the windows open. Icy lemonade in July. A song that feels like a time capsule. One more chapter in a page-turner. Warm banana bread just out of the oven. A kiss to the forehead. Hands running through your hair.
_________
As the mercury hangs high in the thermometer, I strangely find myself feeling the best I have in months running-wise. Something about the early part of the year left me feeling wiped. I think I expected to find vigor again in my body. But it languished for months. Slivers of me would show up from time to time, making me believe that maybe I'd turned the corner.
I was asking my body to do a lot. I wasn't truly recovered from UTMB when I went to the well a short time later for Stinger. And the icing on the cake was Rehoboth. I just felt tired. Not that I couldn't run, but that my body couldn't be asked to go as hard as I wanted to.
Certainly the efforts in the following months were physically a lot as well. And mentally, I was all over the place. Excited to go do a huge bucket list trip. Wrecked from the days Adam was in the hospital. Grandma. Being pulled in a million directions at work. The onus of caregiving. It's no wonder that nothing was feeling fluid during that time.
Which I think back now, removed from it for a couple of months, and wonder how I managed to put my body through the motions. When I think about how I ran a 3:25 on a razor-thin line of sanity and essentially no marathon-specific training, I am floored. I am floored that I had the audacity to go out at that pace and I am floored that I didn't end up on a curb crying somewhere in Newton.
It's hard to remember that you cannot just keep asking so much without something carrying the weight.
_________
I'm staring at a spider on the ceiling as the water cascades down my back. It's the time of year that even a cold shower is still warm, especially after a run. I watch the spider move slowly towards the corner and stop as though it knows it's being watched. Spiders don't bother me and I'm too short to reach it anyway.
There's a swollen lymph node on my neck and I wonder if it's the cause of my HRV plummeting in the past week. My body fighting some infection that isn't showing much in the way of symptoms. Running is a roller coaster right now and my sleep has been interrupted by early mornings. I wonder if it's the heat or age or anxiety or something else. Perhaps all the above or none of the above.
I find slivers of me hiding in my runs. Miles that tick off easily, lost in my thoughts or lost in conversations. But this is often the exception, rather than the rule and I cannot fathom those times that I'd rip 18 miles mid-morning at 7:45 pace. I know I can't be greedy and have it last forever, nor do I think I'm actually putting in that kind of work.
I love it for many of the same reasons and for different ones too. That crutch of holding some of my sanity for a few hours a week. An escape from the doldrums of everyday life where I get to be selfish for a short period of time. Sometimes it's the place that I go and think and sometimes it's the place to clear my mind.
It can be a bit maddening to feel like it's fighting me back. To see paces plummet and feel unable to find that fluidity that I crave. I hope that this is merely a fluke.
_____
And I wonder if it will strike you in the middle of the night, when the demons are circling your already failing mind?
Will it linger like perfume on your clothes, reminding you that you'll never outrun it?
Will you smile to yourself, knowing it'll just keep popping up?
Or will you thrash at it, angry that nowhere feels safe?
_________
I told myself to let myself feel the pain today. It was the last few minutes of the workout and things were getting hard. I dug into it, letting my lungs burn and my legs ache. I thought about how I need to scrape the barrel, just let myself feel hollow.
It had been pouring during the first 20 minutes, pelting me sideways. Thunder erupted in the sky and I should have stopped, seeking shelter for safety. But I kept looping anyway. Lightning flashed in the sky and I kept my eyes on the path, locked into getting it done.
No comments:
Post a Comment