All These Dreams

The fear inside, the hills we’ve climbed the tears this side of heaven, all these dreams inside of me I swear we’re gonna get there... sooner or later—Mat Kearney

What do you really want and need? A question I have been trying to answer for months, in what seems like all arenas of my life. Work, school, relationships, free time, even for dinner. Try thinking about that question every time you make a decision. It is surprisingly difficult to answer.

Not only is it difficult to answer, it’s scary. There are layers to it and when those layers get pulled back we are faced with raw desires that might not be easily satisfied. Then what? What if what we want and need we simply can’t have right now?

As I have been running alone on these dark winter nights, this question has surfaced over and over again. I’ve celebrated finally finding some pieces after months of uncertainty—a new job and a school program that seem to be the perfect fit for what I most want and need out of my career right now—and wondered about the pieces that remain. There are many. As I get closer to the truth of those remaining needs, the quest for meeting them seems daunting, even impossible at times.

Living in your own truth, deciding what you most want and need, it is an essential part of the human journey. No one can decide this for you and yet so often we let others tell us what is best for us. Whether it is pressure from advertising or culture—bigger houses, promotions, marriage and children, new cars—or just advice on how to live from family and friends. In my life, the dreams I am most passionate about are the ones that are the most impossible to explain to anyone else, the ones that don’t make sense on paper.

It takes courage to stand firm in your truth. It is so much easier to accept a life decided for us. To never question whether or not we are settling. It is no easy task to put your real dreams out in front of you. To risk going for them. What if we fail? What if people think we are crazy? That’s us out there on the line. It costs us so much less to fail to reach a dream that was never our own to begin with.

It is because of running I am able to discover and go after my own dreams. Running in the dark makes it hard to look anywhere else but inside. Sometimes running itself is the thing I most want and need, and sometimes it’s the vehicle to a clearer picture of what that is. Sometimes running just reminds me that I don’t have it all figured out yet but I am, nonetheless, still moving on my own path. I have been out in the dark, a long way from home and hurting, wondering if I will ever finish. I would rather be in that darkness than someone else’s light. It’s there that I know my own strength. In the darkness I have faith that this won’t last forever. I discover in those times, if I keep believing, I will find what I need inside to face any obstacle.

With every run I shake off the noise of our environment and the burden of others’ expectations to find myself—raw, vulnerable, full of dreams, and fighting to believe that sooner or later I will find my way to them and all the fear, hills and tears will all be worth it.  

New Shoes and Forgiveness

The word “forgiveness” seems to be echoing out of every song, book, and conversation I encounter these days. It resonates just a bit louder than the words around it. I’ve let the idea of forgiveness swirl around me in the air. I am aware it is there but not sure what to do with it. Occasionally I ponder it for a bit and then put it in the shelves of my mind, letting it sit until it is the right time to pull it out again. The other night, forgiveness whispered, gently encouraging me to take it off the shelf and give it a good, long look. This invitation, warm and welcoming, came in the form of neon-colored running shoes.

Normally I wait until I have shin splints or at least 300 miles on a pair of shoes to get new ones. At 275 I decided I was ready, no matter what the numbers said, to replace my shoes. It seemed a frivolous, impulsive purchase at the time.

That was until I saw the color of these shoes. As anyone who has been fitted for running shoes knows, you decide on the style that works best for your foot, and take whatever color that model happens to be. I’ve been buying the same shoes for five years at the mercy of shoe manufacturer to decide the color. This time, I had a choice. Electric blue and green and in my size? I couldn’t wait to put them on.

 Mizuno Wave Inspire 8s finally in fabulous colors!

New shoes are like magic. I took them for their inaugural run and had energy and spring in my step again. The knee problems I’d suffered from for weeks melted away. I felt like I was running on pillows. It was the rare run that from the start I knew I would be great. Hills would be easy and I could go for as long as I liked, enjoying the feeling of light feet and freedom.

About a mile into this run the excitement of new shoes faded into thoughts about the issue at hand. Forgiveness. Again that word came up as I ran by Christmas lights on trees and nativity sets in yards. Who or what did I need to forgive? I turned a corner and ran by a park I had only previously run by in the daylight. A row of trees glowed, their silhouettes illuminated by dots of white light. Against the inky darkness, the light was stunning. It was as if the stars wrapped themselves around the trees and made their homes a little closer to the earth for the Christmas season.

Light in darkness, Christmas, the end of the year, and a new pair of shoes. I realized all of this was an invitation to hope. The only way I could make room for hope, however was to let go and forgive. It’s been a tough year full of mistakes, frustration, heartache and hard work getting through it. It was time to let it go. Time to let the wounds of the past heal into scars of strength for the future. These lessons and stories are all a part of us, but the hurt, doubt and anger are heavy to carry. Those could be left in the closet with the old shoes.

Forgiveness, for ourselves and others points the way to peace within. I pray that carried by new running shoes, we make room for the light of hope to wrap itself around us, illuminating the beauty and joy that comes with peaceful acceptance of who we are, and what we will be.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

I recently ran the Jingle Bell Run 5K, finishing off my racing season for 2011. It’s been a year of learning but my past three races have taught me one big lesson: Racing, if you are doing it right, is uncomfortable.

A lot is written about the value of negative splitting, or finishing the second half of a race faster than the first. Beginning marathon guides go on ad nauseaum about holding back and saving some energy for the end. While I understand the theory, and maybe there was a time I needed to hear it, that advice is not working for me anymore.

The last three races I have gone out in a pace I wasn’t sure I could sustain. I felt like I was pushing myself, breathing hard, not able to talk, and focused on nothing but running. This is not nearly as fun as a casual run while chatting with a friend. This kind of running involves a lot of positive self-talk, and refusing, over and over again, to let up. In short, these runs have been uncomfortable.

As difficult as these races have been, there is no describing the feeling of looking at my watch and realizing I am running fast. That my time at the finish may be better than I thought possible. One quick time-check at a mile marker is incentive to endure the discomfort. Water, rest, a break…none of those things are worth trading for the feeling of being fast. In dieting, it’s been said, “no food tastes as good as skinny feels.” Likewise no comfortable pace feels as good as a PR feels.

I’ve spent a lot of time holding back in races. Saving energy or pacing myself or whatever. I’ve learned holding back is limiting myself. The last three races, I’ve gone out hard and held on. I’ve realized that getting to those mile markers with fast splits is teaching me the value of sustained discomfort. It’s in that space, if we can stay with it long enough, we get better. 

Maybe negative splitting isn’t always a positive strategy. I got to the end of the Jingle Bell Run and didn’t have a finishing kick. My last mile was a solid 30 seconds slower than my first. But my overall time was the fastest I’ve had in two years. I had nothing left at the end. I knew I ran as hard as I could for as long as I could. It was uncomfortable. Hard. And nothing could have been more satisfying.

We play conservative a lot in life. We hold back our best for fear we might lose it if we put it to the test. We wait too long or late in the race to make up time. At that point it’s too late: we’ve settled into comfortable and it becomes hard to imagine we have a better “best.” As long as we are holding something back we aren’t becoming what we can really be.

As T.S. Eliot said “only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” The thing about going out hard is there isn’t any wondering “what if.” The secret to racing, and maybe more than racing, is finding a way to be comfortable being uncomfortable. To put in enough effort from the start that we risk the certainty that we can hold on or finish. In that uncertainty and discomfort we find out what we can endure for what is most important to us.