"How can you get very far, If you don't know Who you are? How can you do what you ought, If you don't know What you've got? And if you don't know Which to do Of all the things in front of you, Than what you'll have when you are through Is just a mess without a clue Of all the best that can come true If you know What and Which and Who"
As you all know I have two kids and have read Winnie the Pooh I don't know how many times. What is even more ironic is my whole life my dad has called me Winnie the Pooh.
From my last blog you all know I had one of the hardest weeks ever last week when I had an awesome DNF at Peyton Jordan. After being crushed on Sunday I told myself I could have 24 hours to be sad and that was all. So it was perfect Monday morning when Scott took us down to the bay to run that he was having me do an 18 mile progression. My first thought was great I was so pissed off last night I didn't eat dinner, followed by no sleep followed by coffee and just a few bites of breakfast......this is going to be a sh** show. As most runs go for me when I am upset I ran way too fast in the beginning which was only made worse by the fact that I was at sea level, clipping off all miles under 6:30 and a few close to 6 flat. This was in the first half of my rn which is never a good idea. But all I was doing was thinking, thinking how the night before went so wrong. I didn't go out crazy fast I went to the back of the pack like I planned and was just hanging on. First mile was 5:11 thats close to what I thought it would be, second mile 5:15 but I just couldn't get clicking. I spent the first hour of my 18 trying to figure out how this could happen. How could I hit 6xmile at home at altitude all under 5:19 and this could feel so bad. I knew there was one explanation that was out of my control but even that shouldn't stop me. I finished the run which ended up being very painful and hot at the end. Got in the car and was struggling to talk to anyone without crying. Scott asked me what I wanted to do next how I was feeling and I felt so bad I couldn't really respond. Just the thought of how much I had let myself down sent me into tears. I did the best I could the rest of the day but just wanted to get home to my husband and kids so I could get a big hug cry it out and move on.
The thing about a DNF is it tears you up. As a runner we train ourselves to do the opposite of what I had just done. WE train to stick it out. put our bodies in pain and just push on. This is the whole reason we do workouts. Luckily I have good friends. On Tuesday I didn't even feel like running but Michael shot me a text.."Lunch run?" Ok sure...that night Corey "I'm gonna run at gymnastics." This is pretty much how my whole week played out. Which is good because I would have preferred to just sit on my butt and do nothing. Than I had a workout last week. 12x800......GREAT! Just what I want to do put myself in pain and prove I am out of shape. Than the opposite happened. I ran my fastest 800 meter workout yet. Which should have made me happy right? Nope... it just made me more pissed. If I had had a bad race because I was out of shape THAT would have made sense. Instead I am running 2:29-2:35 at altitude fairly easily. Now I am even more mad!!!!!
My way of coping last week with the anger was to go golfing a LOT! Turns out when I am a bad runner I am a pretty darn good golfer. As we are out golfing one night Kevin said maybe there is something to be learned from this. Usually you are so wound up about golfing and make mistakes, but now you are so pissed off about running you are a relaxed golfer and doing really well. HMMMMMM........the next day Scott asks me how I am doing, I explain I am fine taking up golfing to relax me. His response was Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here. Really? Do these two call one another up to gang up on me? After our discussion Scott told me I needed to go get the book "the Tao of Pooh". Sure why not I love to read maybe it will distract me. When I show up at the book store and pull the book out my first thought was SERIOUSLY? Is my head really shoved so far up my bum that I am given a reading assignment about Winnie the Pooh? Clearly I am not as patient as this darn bear. I would have chocked Eeyore a long time ago with his sad pathetic attitude. Than there is piglet really just leave me alone for five minutes. So this reading assignement should be interesting.
Funny enough I only get a few pages in when I come across my first EUREKA moment..... "Well" said Pooh "we keep looking for home and not finding it, so I thought that if we looked for this pit, we'd be sure not to find it, which would be a good thing, because then we might find something that we weren't looking for, which might be just what we were looking for really"
Yes I had something that may have slowed me down at PJ, but I think the bigger thing could have been my head. Immediatly when I found out what heat I got into I thought "I don't belong in this race I need to be in the second heat" "I can't run with these women" I need to hit 32:45 at least to guarantee my spot" "what pace is that, what do I need to hit a lap" Before the race had even gotten on the track I had already defeated myself. I need to be more like that silly old bear. Why did I do so good in the marathon? In my first crack at the 10,0000 on the track? Because I just ran with no expectations I just wanted to see what WENDY could do. Not how I could stack up with the others. I went out to those races thinking of finding my time. Just like Pooh is saying. I can't toe the line searching to prove I belong. I need to toe the line every time knowing I am in great shape. Who cares about pace or place lets just see what WENDY can do and the result will end up being a great time. The mental aspect of a race has always been my down fall. I am not going to sit here and tell you I have come to the relization that I belong with these women. I do feel like having started so late in life and feeling a little like I am out of my league is usually a strong thing for me. It means I go to practice and work that much harder feeling like I have a lot to do to catch up. In that aspect its a great thing BUT when it comes to race time it kills me. Maybe the physical thing slowing me down at PJ was there and when I knew it I just let myself give up. I just let myself say you are right you don't belong in this race. Now it's time to start believing in myself and going out looking for that "pit" instead of my time.
Moving forward I wasn't fully sure what to do. At first I thought I didn't want to try again and be crushed. But talking to my friend Dan helped me figure itout. Maybe I just didn't want to try again because I was too afraid of the pain if I didn't hit my time. In reality that time should not be a problem to hit. I am in the shape to do it. So Scott and I decided this week I will head out to Grand Rapid and run the USA 25k champs. In my head I am a little scared. I mean I ahve been training for a 10k this is more than double that. But Scott has never sent me to a race I am not prepared for so I am going in with an open mind. No time goal no place goal. What I want out of this race is to have fun. I need to have a road race to remember why I love this so much. Track races are a fun place to get a fast time and maybe a lot of people find them really fun because they are great at it. I just don't. I love to run fast but I love the roads. AFter a road race it's a big party with all these people that are just as crazy as you. A fun time to get to know one another and just relax. I am really looking forward to that. If I can come away with a little prize money that would be awesome but mostly I just want to have a good race experienceto erase the thoughts and doubts i my head right now. That being said I havent given up my dream. I want more than anything to be on the start line in Eugene so I will go to Portland the first week of June and give the 10,000 one more shot. Sounds like there will be a lot of wmen with the same goal in mind. Plus I hear Kim Conley will be there pacing us through 4 miles so it should be a good situation.
Until next time I am going to be working on getting the Eeyore out of me
"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us dont. That's all there is to it"
I'll start telling myself that I can!
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