2 minute read
You set a new goal. Maybe it was a running race. So you signed up for the race. Found your run group. Bought the gear. Found the plan. Then, the race got cancelled so you decided to keep running and working towards your goal. All the pieces of the puzzle were right in front of you. Except for one.
You don’t feel like it.
Maybe that feeling you once had no longer exists for you. Instead you’re thinking of the million other things you have going on or you’re thinking how you’d rather do something else. Your mind begins to wander and you wonder why you made such a Big Stupid Mistake to set this goal. You ever-so-slowly begin to tiptoe backwards hoping nobody notices and thinking of all the reasons to justify the reasons you gave up. Maybe next year.
What is missing from this picture when all the pieces are right in front of you? Something happens so quickly that we (myself included!) forget there is something that stands in between feeling and action.
That, my dear is CHOICE.
Well, what choice do you have but to quit when you don’t feel like continuing on? This is “it” for me as an endurance athlete. It is moments facing doubts that you become stronger by overcoming them. The greatest discovery as an endurance athlete is that by accepting weakness we can find greater strength.
What does that even mean? And what does that look like to accept weakness?
It looks like this: instead of being “defeated” by those hard *feels* you…
IGNORE them.
//OR//
LISTEN to them, then don’t give them any power.
You say, “I understand, I get you”. When intentionally going out of your way to self-impose a difficult circumstance, guess what? There will be times you might feel like giving up. It is not a personal failure, but an expectation to meet these moments along the journey. It doesn’t mean that you are weak, but that this is difficult.
When doubts are seen as “part of the process” rather than “part of the end”, that is how you can keep going despite doubt, and invite those fears to come along for the journey.
As I continue training for Run4Water, my attempt to run 130-miles nonstop across Maine this Labor Day, I have all the *feels* leading up it, but mostly excitement. THIS FRIDAY I will be attempting to run 73-mile nonstop run across Vermont becoming the first woman to do it. You’ll be able to follow along with a satellite SPOT tracker for the anticipated 14-hour journey with links on social media. Excited to share the journey with you!
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