New Mantra, in Action

This came to me during my last run, inspired by a Facebook posting. It's simple, but it works. 

Shut up. 

Work hard. 

Be patient. 

All my test results from the endocrinologist came back normal. Good news: I"m perfectly healthy. For that, I truly am grateful, although it was hard to get back to that, because I was really hoping against hope that I'd have some kind of medical issue that would explain everything, and that could be fixed. But there's not. So... Bad News: There is no medical reason that would explain a 20 pound weight gain in 6 months. 

I gnashed my teeth and yelled and cried and screamed over this quite a bit, some of it publicly in the Twitter timeline, some of it at home (my poor husband absorbed the brunt of the anger and frustration, and knows me well enough to accept that it wasn't directed at him, but that rather he was just standing THERE when I needed to blow up), and some of it to close friends, without whom I would be totally adrift right now. But, really, I am over it. Or rather, I am over being angry about it. I'm not going to just sit back and accept it and use it as an excuse. It's time to just deal with it, keep working to fix it, but in the meanwhile, shut up about it. 

Is it harder to run at my current weight? Yes. Will I be slower than I was last summer? Yes. But there are a lot of things about my running, about my LIFE, that are different now than they were last summer. And, on balance, that is a good thing. So where I am is where I am and I can only get better from here. And even if I'm slower, I'm still going to do it. During the self-imposed break, all I could think about is when I would feel like running again. So I'm back at it now, and it's not easy, and it isn't always going to be fun, but I'm out there, and I enjoy it. Mostly. It's going to be hard work. And that's OK. I'm not afraid to work hard. 

And I made some decisions, or rather, one big one. I'm going for the 50-miler at Wild Hare. It will be a quick ramp up, but I won't be happy with myself if I don't. I don't have anything to prove to anyone but myself. So I am going for it. I will run as far as I can, then I will walk, then I will sit for a bit, and then keep walking. Until I am either finished or they drag me kicking and screaming from the course. I think I can do it. And I'm going to prepare as best I can in the next 10.5 weeks. I need to not focus on my pace, except to stay ahead of the cutoffs. And I need to relax some and accept that it will take time to get back to where I want to be. I'll have to be patient. 

So there. It felt amazing and right when that decision crystallized in my mind. And I've gotten nothing but support from my friends, from my frunners, when I shared it with them. So. Here we are. And there we go. 

If you'll excuse me, I have a few miles to run.