When 20 miles seems worse than 30

It was time.  I had fought it all morning, but I couldn’t put it off any longer.  Lacing my shoes, I wondered why I felt compelled to do this, and why it mattered so much.  I had spent the morning dreading and anticipating the pain of it and it was about to get worse than what I was already feeling.   Freezing temps, blustery winds and more pain?  Muscles already screaming began to chant unkind things to me and every nerve in my entire lower body felt as though it were piano wire stretched too tight.

On top of my physical suffering, the schoolyard bully who has a permanent residence in my head was relentlessly taunting me.   I tried to imagine with no success actually making it through my 20 miler today.

In short, my entire being was under stress.  One definition of stress is the strain or tension from adverse or demanding circumstances.  I can testify that it is magnified in my head as I imagine all the ways I am never going to make it through this run.  Twenty miles is a long way on any day, but after running thirty yesterday it seems improbable at best.  I am filled with the unfair paradox of feeling anticipatory pain, this tension creating more tension.  So my aching body with all of its muscle memory fresh and raw, knows what I am about to do is going to hurt and creates even more muscle tension.  On top of this pain it decreases pain tolerance which seems to be the final straw on this big pile of emotional crud I have been mined wrestling all morning. 

Mind you, this is all continuing to happen as I am trying to bend over to tie my shoes.  I say trying because after yesterday, bending requires a contortion act to avoid  a complete snap and fracture of my hamstring which has been stretched and wound too tight to be fully functional.  I am assured I will never touch my toes again.  It also follows a long morning of contemplating every justifiable excuse in the world to opt out and give myself a pass.  So why was I heading out the door?  Why was I about to inflict more pain on top of already screaming pain?

Yesterday as I headed out I felt energetic and determined although nervous about the task ahead of me.  I start most of my long runs this way though, never quite sure I am capable of making it through a distance that never becomes easy.   It doesn’t matter how many miles I run, I still find myself wondering if I can go do it.  Yesterday as I finally made it back to my start point, having forced myself to the accountability of and out and back route, I double checked my GPS to challenge the mental gymnastics in my head.  Because even though I had been out there for a long time, and covered the distance myself I still wondered if maybe I was fooling myself.  Because thirty miles just seems like more than I am capable of doing. So with the thirty miles verified, why was I so sure I couldn’t handle my run today, 10 miles less than yesterday? Why did it seem so much worse than the longer run? And why did I have to do it the first place?  Who cared really?  

The answer is simple.  I do.  I don’t believe any of our moments are meaningless. The moments in my days, my decisions or even training runs matter.  I believe  most of us ask ourselves in one way or another how much we matter as well as how much we do matters.  I know I may not ever get proof of how much they actually matter, but when I do things I would rather not do, when I shut down the doubting voice in my head, it matters.  When I take action and make decisions from the person I want to be, the person who finds a way, I move one step further from the person I am afraid of being. The person who finds a way out.  Each time I find a way I add meaning to my life and I grow in ways which will only seem important later, never at the moment. When I do the hard things I don’t want to do, when I run even though no one would know or care if I didn’t,  my moments matter in the biggest way possible. They become the threads which form the threads of my future moments. 

And by the way, my run today which I spent the morning dreading?  The one I was certain wasn’t possible based on how sore I was?  It was one of my best ever.  Once I started to move I felt great, my form felt effortless and at the 20 mile mark I had to double check my pace, it was one of my fastest ever.