June 8th, 2012: Still at 260 today. I’ll take a static day over a gainer.
A week and a day and I’ll be running in a half-marathon. Tomorrow I’m going to run 15 miles without stopping. Seems like most of the marathon/half-marathon training plans I looked at told me not to reach or exceed the race distance prior to race day. Some of them said it was ok though, provided you take care not to over-train.
Over-training is difficult for me to define yet. One thing I do know is that I would prefer to have the confidence that I can make it that far, without stopping, before race day. So at the risk of over-training, I’ll roll the dice in an attempt to achieve confidence. The training plans I read that suggested it was ok to hit full distance did so in the name of confidence.
You hear about the mental aspect of athletics all the time. This is one time I’ll require confidence more than ability. And I need to remind myself that in almost all of my athletic endeavors as a dude getting up there in age, my only opponent is me. Yes, Juliana is running this race with me, but we don’t compete against each other, we’re a team. We’ll only be as fast as the slower of us, but I definitely need to make sure I do my part, and my part requires me to compete against me, and if I win, we win – and vice versa.
June 8th, 2020: This race I was talking about in 2012 was the beginning of a few good summers I had running in these local races. I remember clearly being really nervous about all of them.
Nerves have fucked me up in competition more than once, especially in wrestling and boxing. I remember getting so nervous on the days of wrestling or boxing matches that by the time we’d be getting started, I’d be yawning and feel like I was already out of gas. I wouldn’t get quite so nervous about football or rodeo, my other two high-school sports, but still, the pre-game jitters were present, and at a level where I was not comfortable, and certainly not excited.
So what’s the point of all that competition stuff, when the days, hours, and minutes leading up to it are such a jumble of scrambled wires throwing sparks around in my noodle packet from the short circuits, which end up in my stomach as aches and sickness? Why put myself in these positions of such discomfort just in the name of competition? Ain’t it so much easier to stay in my hobbit-hole with bacon and eggs and look out the window?
When I reach my goal weight, can I just stop this shit? If not, when can I sit back, fold my arms, and look with satisfaction on the job I completed, and say, “I’ve made it”? Is there really a scale number, or an age, or an amount of money, or a title, or some kind of achievement that signifies the end of this war? Do I ever get to let my guard down, close my eyes, feel the strain fall out of my shoulders, and stop the madness of one challenge after another?
No, I do not get to, not now, not ever. This is why I’d better just smile and then keep my hands on the controls until I vanish because otherwise…
…Nervous or not, I’ve still gotta do it, so therein must lie the essence of the challenge, which basically returns me to the basic premise of learning to embrace the suck. There is no top of the mountain.
