Training

New awareness

Teach2Connect1 Comment

Life is super crazy these days. Life changes galore including new job, saying goodbye to old job, performing in Chicago, family changes, packing and moving etc. This has raised my stress level to def-con 5. I find that I am eating a lot of crap in response, not all bad, but definitely out of balance. I know intellectually that if I ate better, more greens and no diary, that I would feel better. But from an emotional outlet perspective I am completely aware that my bad eating is a way to provide control in a world of turmoil. It is completely conscious. I am fully aware of my choices and I think this is a good first step.

I am such a big picture person that so much of what I see is in extremes, black and white. As I grow older and weather big storms I’m slowly starting to learn that short term responses do not always mean life long destruction. As long as there is a clear awareness and understanding that these short term fixes will not enact long term change. Sometimes there is need for short term relief and sometimes it is more appropriate to focus on the big picture changes. Both foci have validity in a well lived life.

The same thing has been true with my running and training in the last two years since IM. I am now starting to see the long term effects of not training and that was the wake up call I needed to restart the engine. Again a long process of change begins. But I am aware now that in the scheme of life that there is a time for things to be out of balance a bit for the clear path to be laid straight.

It is with this new awareness does not mean automatic change but rather an acknowledgement of life as a process. Life truly is a winding journey and not a series of absolutes. Oh blessed life.

Fraud

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I love it when friends ask for my advice about training and racing. it means the world to me when I get messages or emails saying that someone has started running or swimming or training because they read my blog or heard about something I’ve done. It isn’t because of me that makes me happy. It is because I’m so happy that friends are enjoying an active lifestyle. I know the positive difference that running has made in my life. I want everyone to have that experience.

But then comes the wash over me of feeling a great guilt. I haven’t trained properly or consistently for races in over two years. I spend more days on the couch than I do on the road. My bike has gathered a thin layer of dust on the nicest of spring days. I avoid scales. When I do race, I try to avoid the social scene so mo one will ask me my time. When I talk to someone at the store about running and they ask me if I am a runner, I say yes but my heart feels a twinge.

Am I perpetrating a fraud? Have I lost all credibility? Have I become a “has been”? It is such a feeling of embarrassment that I am not longer strong or fast or dedicated. Can I ever get back to where I left off? Can I be forgiven for such a mask of success covering a face of failure?

It’s not that I sit on the couch all the time feeling myself getting fatter. It is that I have lost the drive to be an endurance athlete. I run for a half an hour a few days a week and I am happy. But how do you explain this to a hyper competitive community where your acceptance is based on your mile count or latest PR? How do you handle the empathetic nods and passing reassurance that “you’ll get it back”?

I don’t want to be a fraud. I want to be healthy. I want to enjoy physical activity and feel accepted. I feel so blessed that so many people have started to adopt a healthy lifestyle and started running or racing. Now if I could only feel a sense of inspiration again. So that I no longer feel like a fraud.