The Hard Days

“When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical.” Emil Zapotek

I felt cold air blowing past my raw cheeks and trudged up the hill as fast as I could. My stomach hurt, and my entire body was damp with sweat, which was chilling in the 25-degree wind. I moved my arms in circles and tried pick up my pace. This just felt terrible.

I was at mile 4 of what was supposed to be a 10-mile run. The morning was gorgeous; the sun was beginning to rise and shine brightly through the trees. But I felt tired, and weak. I struggled to catch my breath, and settle my stomach. I thought about where I could turn to get home early, trying not to wallow in my misery. I told myself how strong I was and that I was through the hard part. I tried listening to the words of the music in my headphones, and looking at the beauty around me. Nothing worked. I was feeling residual sadness and unrest that I couldn’t shake, and my body was not cooperating today.

I finally decided to call the run…at mile 9. I wasn’t making the extra loop to make it 10. I was going home for a total of 9.5 miles instead. I clicked off the Nike+ I use to measure my runs. The stats were recited. Through this entire horrible run, I managed to clock a pace that would still put me under 5 hours for the marathon—my ultimate goal. I was beating up on myself for quitting early and running slowly. Though I had been averaging much faster paces than this lately, this was still in the right range for a long run.

In the shower, trying to warm up my frigid body, I realized how ridiculous I was being. I felt awful and I and I still ran a great pace and for ninety-five percent of the time I was supposed to run. I had 4 great runs in a row before this and I know every run can’t be awesome. I was dwelling on one run that didn’t feel good.

I thought about training. This lasts 5 months. It’s not about any one run. In some ways, this was better preparation than those great, fast runs. I know I can still hit my pace even if I feel like garbage. I know I can keep going. I still got out there and did it.

In running, and in life, the things we do each day don’t always feel great. Some days are work and we don’t see the results we crave. We don’t feel a reward or sense of accomplishment. We expend an excess of energy trying to meet a minimum standard. And that’s the best we can do—all we can do at that time.

Some days are just hard days. The question is: what do we do with those days? Phone it in? Or give it our best anyway, even knowing it won’t yield the outcome we seek? Do we go out and do what we have to do, what we love to do, because it makes a difference over time, or because it’s only rewarding that day?

There’s a reason our best isn’t quantifiable. It changes every day. Some days our best is our best ever and some days it only seems mediocre. But it’s still our best. We aren’t all held up against some uniform standard, we are called to give what we can, each day. Every day. Our best. That’s all. And in the long run, that makes all the difference. 

Changing My Stride

Running has been pretty good lately. My pace is a solid improvement over last year, and my mileage is right on target. I have my tired days and my good days. All in all, I can’t complain. Except. Except my knee often hurts going up and down stairs, I think I have tendonitis in my toe, and the area around my hip has never felt quite right despite all of my stretching.

I started to wonder if pretty good is good enough?

Today I went to my favorite running shoe store to check out some new shoes. This time I wanted something different. The helpful employee introduced himself as Paul, and asked if I was open to learning more about the shoes I came to see. “Tell me everything you know,” I replied.

I spent an hour listening, talking, trying on shoes and running outside testing them out. I learned about mid-foot strikes, cadence, and heel to toe drop. The most valuable few minutes were running out in the cold. Paul watched me run. After a couple of back and forth trips I learned from him how to move my feet more efficiently. With a couple of drills (one of which included me flailing my arms in circles while running—can’t wait to do that one in public places) I discovered a way of running that felt so much more comfortable. I had run 11 miles that morning and with this new stride, I felt like I could go another 11. For the first time in my life, I was light on my feet.

No one ever watched me run and corrected my form. I just started running and kept going trying to get faster. We can only improve ourselves so much without bringing in outside help. Sometimes we need others to see what we cannot, and offer us a new way.

This new stride is going to take a lot of practice, and a lot of me looking silly, waving my arms around while I run those drills. If I can get it though, the payoff could be huge. Reduced injuries, faster times, and a more comfortable run. I am willing to be patient and keep working at it for that reward.

Driving home, new shoes at my side, I couldn’t help but think about how hard it is to change. It’s going to take me weeks of concentration and practice working on this running form. I’m not used to thinking about how I run. But sometimes it’s good to be challenged. We don’t realize how we’ve always done things until someone else sees what we do and questions it. Perhaps the most difficult thing about this process is accepting the questions. Recognizing that maybe our way isn’t so great after all. Maybe this outsider has a valuable point that we should consider. Maybe that means doing something we are uncomfortable with to change.

If only we can have the humility to realize that we aren’t perfect. That what has been working for us may not have been working well. There is education and wisdom out there if only we’re willing to open ourselves to it.

I hope this makes a big difference in my running. I will be sure to post my progress. I know it’s going to take a lot of practice; anything worth learning does. But if we can embrace openness and humility, patience and practice, there’s no limit to what we can do and who we can become. With such exciting possibilities ahead, accepting “pretty good” no longer seems good enough.  

Getting Real and Getting Stronger

Once again, I was rushing out of work trying to get home, change clothes, and get out the door for my evening run. I needed to squeeze in six miles at my target marathon pace and doubted my ability to do so. It’s hard enough to hit my ambitious goal pace when I have stoplights and hills to contend with, and I have been tired and overwhelmed. I took off fast, letting anxious energy go with each step.

I breathed in the cold air and let my thoughts drift to a conversation I had earlier that day.

I’ve been in this hard-to-define friendship for over a year. The meetings and conversations have been great but I always leave a little unsatisfied. Today was no exception. It’s not the hour or so spent, but the question “what’s next?” I always want more. I wonder how to accept what is good, and let go of the rest. I am still searching for what it will take for peace around this.

Today I was trying in some way to out run this issue. Maybe if I just go fast enough, I will get past this ambiguity and anxious energy that plague me and find my way to being settled. Why was I so unsettled about this anyway?

I am immersed in busyness, and overwhelming amounts of transition. With almost everyone around me in crisis mode all of the time (for good reasons) and trying not to succumb to it myself, I am longing for some sort of rock to cling to. Someone to say, “You’re going to make it.” In times of chaos, sometimes we need friends who aren’t wondering themselves if they can get through it. We need to be reminded that we are still loveable no matter what curveballs life throws at us. We need to know steady people who see the good and beauty in us in our darkest times.

By circumstance, the people around me have too much going on. They all need their own rocks. I realized that it was relief to sit for an hour today without wondering how to be supportive, or how to hold the challenges of someone else, and simultaneously struggle with my own. Even with the ambiguity around the mechanics of the friendship, there are still elements of support. Of being appreciated for who I am during difficult times. This is one friend who isn’t in crisis mode. The conversations bring clarity and peace to my chaos for just a little while.

Those conversations also remind me what I have lost: rocks in my life that have moved to different places; who aren’t where I can see them. I still grieve the loss of their daily presence. Perhaps that’s why the sadness around this relationship. Sometimes it’s easier to try to forget the things you miss most.

I picked up the pace, not knowing what else to do. I looked down at my watch at mile six. I finished 42 seconds faster than my target time. I walked the last block to my house, caught my breath and thought about how much strength it takes to grow. It means looking at our lives and being honest about what isn’t working, what we miss, and what we need. Strength is paying attention to unsettled feelings long enough to discover where they come from. Maybe we won’t know how to fix it right away. But we will eventually. Having the courage struggle, and admit to pieces of our lives being empty or broken will only move us towards healing faster—in this case, maybe 42 seconds faster. 

Looking forward...

Speed work can be one of the chores of a training program. For me speed work is one mile fast, an easy 400 meters, another mile fast, and so on. It requires a track, and a lot of concentration. Trying to hold an uncomfortable pace for 8 laps is hard enough that I always think about quitting a little early. It’s just short enough that I can’t bring myself to ease up without feeling like a total wimp. Somehow I can always convince myself to do those last couple of laps, to push for just a little bit longer.

Speed work takes focus. It’s a balance between pushing yourself, and remaining relaxed. It’s counting, and pace checking and breathing. It’s a natural rhythm maintained in an unnatural way.

With all of this to keep track of it’s hard to know where to focus. The other day, I got my answer. I looked up ahead. I saw the curve, then the straightaway where I was going and focused on just getting to those points. My shoulders relaxed and I was able to breathe more deeply. With that one change of posture, running faster became more natural.

I remembered all of the running advice I’d ever read. When running up hills or struggling, look up. Looking up ahead instead of down at your feet actually helps your form become more efficient. With better form, breathing and running are actually easier. Just by changing where you look.

I thought about the power of changing our focus. How often do we get tripped up because we are staring at our feet instead of trusting them to carry us? Obstacles intimidate us because we forget to look past them. We spend too much time hung up on where we used to be. Instead of thinking about where we are going, we think about everything that blocks our path to getting there. 

I thought about why I was here on the track. The marathon. So I am in the best shape of my life when my toe hits the start line. So I am in my best shape when I put away my running shoes afterwards and head into major surgery. That’s why these laps matter. I want to know I’ve put in the work, not once, but every day. Instead of stopping when I want to, I chose, over and over again, to keep going. As Aristotle once said “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Cultivating this habit of excellence is much harder if we don’t have a place to focus—a direction or destination we are trying to get to. Without looking forward—past our feet and the obstacles—all this training would be is unnecessary hard work.

Looking forward helps me give my best right now. Looking forward helps turn obstacles into nothing more than necessary steps, like getting dressed and filling the car with gas. Habits. Remembering to look up—look at where we want to be, instead of what’s in our way—that is what changes those ordinary habits into the habits that transform us into something better.

Once in awhile I hope we all stop to look up ahead and ask ourselves if what we are doing right now is leading us to the lives of excellence we desire. Are we going in the right direction? If so then all we need to do is relax, breathe deeply, trust our feet, and most importantly, keep looking ahead. Everything else will come naturally, if only we know where to look.

Between Dusk and Darkness

I scrambled to get out the door. Tying back my hair with both hands and holding gloves in my teeth I zipped around my house looking for my jacket. I darted out the door with one arm in the coat and the other shoving my house key in my pocket. I looked up at the setting sun and hoped to get my 6-mile run in before dark. I couldn’t find my headlamp and ran out of time.

It took a few minutes for my panicked, still rushing pace to settle into normal. I tried breathing and relaxing and just letting my feet do the work. It had been a day of rushing around. By the time I reached my second mile, I found my rhythym and started to believe I might have just enough light to make it home.

At about the halfway point, I hit the last uphill and my favorite place on this route, the bridge. All the uphills to get there payoff when I can see the sky stretching out on either side, and a busy road of cars passing under my feet traveling right into the sunset. After winding through the woods it is refreshing to stand in a place with a clear view for miles. 

Despite my rush to beat the darkness I stopped on the bridge. I looked to my left and saw an almost full moon glowing in the dusty blue sky. I looked to my right and saw nothing but streaks of pink and orange that seemed to be burning, as if the sun was flashing a rainbow of warmth, begging to be seen and appreciated before sinking into darkness for the day. I snapped a picture of the view from either side. 

This place between light and dark is so breathtakingly beautiful. The blaze orange sun and moon rising seem to promise hope when we cannot define exactly where we are. Maybe we don’t need to. Maybe we only need to stand still for a minute and just appreciate that every moment cannot be confined to a category, word, or place. Sometimes we are in the middle of something beyond definition—between dusk and darkness. We are not quite where we used to be and not quite where we want to be yet.

But there is beauty in that space. There is movement and energy and something just necessary about appreciating the bridge as its own location. I spent the rest of the run trying to take in the subtle shifts in  light and color that happen at dusk. 

A lot of times we are in such a rush to get from one place to another that by the time we arrive we can’t remember how we got there. We miss all of those subtle changes in our environment and in ourselves. In my experience, growth, change, life—they don’t happen in dramatic shifts. They happen as gradually as the sun sets and seasons change. It’s one foot in front of the other until we arrive. Many of those steps are mundane or even painful. But let’s not be in such a rush that we miss those glorious places—the places where we have a clear and beautiful view of where we have come from, and where we are going. No matter what deadline we have placed on ourselves to be somewhere or become something, there is enough time to pause for a second and realize wherever we are rushing to is no more beautiful than the place we are right now.  

It Only Takes a Second

I find a new semester, with the calendar is already filled, and the to-do list already long, intimidating. My first instinct is to put my head down, get to work, crossing the off days one at a time. Then I remind myself I want to do more than just get through it. I’ve been thinking about how I want to focus this semester.

Over my vacation I heard several times from different places “it only takes a second of courage.” I realized that maybe courage works that way. In short bursts that allow us to do what we are most afraid of. Maybe none of us really has courage all of the time, but we can find it, for just a few seconds, when we need it. There are moments and chances to grab on to it for just long enough to do the thing we fear.

It only takes a second. I want to be open to those opportunities to seize courage. When do I only need a second of courage? Or a minute? In what ways do you need to be brave for only a few seconds?

As I think about this semester, about running a marathon and donating my kidney at the end of it, and a full work and school schedule I am totally overwhelmed. If I want to do more than get through it, then I where I might need some courage becomes pretty clear.

I am afraid to face all of this alone.

Courage means admitting that fear. It means being vulnerable. It means allowing people to help me and throwing those needs into the universe and hoping, praying that acknowledging them out loud might be the way to meet them. Sometimes it takes a few seconds of courage to voice the things that matter most and depending on others to help us find our way.

I was talking about all of this, about asking for help and accepting it and memories of my first marathon came flooding back. I remember asking a bunch of people for prayers and short notes for me to read during the race. A request that only took a few seconds of courage—a few seconds where I revealed how scared I was of doing this and that I needed support. I found love there in places I never expected. Beyond notes, of which there were many, were care packages and cookies and phone calls. I felt like dozens of people were in Oklahoma, running with me in their own ways. Thinking about those people throughout the race, about how many people cared that I was doing this, gave me the strength to keep going in so many places. Thinking about sharing the stories with friends and family, helped those miles pass along and helped me take it all in.

Love and support is out there. But sometimes you have to ask for it. Ironically, courage sometimes is admitting we need help and letting go of independence. Not because we are weak, but because the big journeys demand collective strength. We could put our heads down and get through it, never letting others in, but then we’d miss the joy that comes from sharing it. We’d miss the strength we can draw on when our own has run out.

It only takes a second of courage to put yourself out there, whether it’s asking for help, or letting someone know how you really feel, or speaking some challenging truth. It only takes a second. Will you be ready when it comes?

You Have No Idea...

“You have no idea what you are in for.” I was in a dormitory rec room the first time I heard those words. It was the end of two weeks of intense Resident Assistant training. I was feeling prepared and excited to begin this new role. In a meeting with all of the new RAs, the Associate Director of Res Life looked around at all of us and said this. Not only did those words prove true then, I think of them at the beginning of every new journey: new jobs, grad school, a year of service, or marathon training plans. I realize when I say, “yes,” no matter how much training or preparation I have gone through to get to that yes, I have no idea what I am in for.

These words occurred to me again as I finished filling out the on-line registration form for the Flying Pig Marathon coming up on May 6^th. It will be my 3^rd marathon and last major race before another major event. I am donating a kidney to my father shortly after that marathon concludes.

Two big physical yeses and I have no idea what I am in for.

But when do we ever really know? When we make any kind of decision can we ever know what will come of it? We always have to say “yes” or “no” without all of the information.

All we have to know is “why.” Nietzsche once said “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” Why do I want to run another marathon and why do I want to give my dad my kidney? And why, friends, do you want to do the things you want to do this year? What are your reasons for saying yes or no to the things that you do?

My answer? I believe in saying yes to things that scare me. When I stare at a distant goal, and tremble at the sacrifice needed to achieve it, and simultaneously cannot imagine anything I want more? Those are the opportunities I don’t want to pass up. Those are the journeys that make me feel most alive. Those are the yeses that come out of deep hope and love. And that’s where I want to live. Out of that place. Not out of the fear of not knowing what to expect. If my why is love then the how will take care of itself.

Running a marathon and donating a kidney are yeses that come from the same place. When I look back on my life, as I am wont to do at the end of one year and beginning of another, I want to know I said yes to the things that matter most to me. I want to know that I was open to transformation, to risk, to opportunities to put love into action in ways that only I can. I want to know I pushed myself — that I believed enough in my reasons to say yes without knowing entirely what to expect along the way.

That’s the why. Because I believe love, hope, and faith will beat fear, doubt, and apathy every time. The “how” remains to be seen. Five months of training runs, followed by running 26.2 miles in a row and a major surgery for my dad and me aren’t the most predictable of scenarios. It’s a new year. I know I have no idea what I am in for.  But I can’t wait to find out.