the Race in Animated Story 
I did my first race in roughly seven years last Saturday. A Turkey Trot trail 10K .. With no idea what to expect, yet still somehow expecting to be somewhere between where I had started from and where I had ended just seven years ago. I had obvious expectations.
And those expectations weren’t met and thus the disappointment that day. In fact, I had never run a race that slow. Well, I may have once .. I recall several “bad” races where I just didn’t feel good and my times were off. I even have raced feeling like poop but still getting great times. This race was a combo of both feeling like poop and in my eyes, performing the same way.
I now look at the race result as being more of a lesson wrapped up in a tough package. It seems that is the way many of my lessons are delivered … I guess I must be hard headed. lol
I went out with the expectation of being who I was instead of who I am. So that resulted in anxiety that overwhelmed my mind, body and spirit. The race turned from race, to run, to jog, to walk, back to jog for me. Projecting myself to be somewhere other than what was made the outcome much less desirable than it may have been had I just let go to go with my own flow.
My breath was out of whack from the start. I felt like my heart beat was thumping out of my chest. Every runner was breathing hard. It felt too fast, but then I figured that it was probably just that wobbly adrenaline rush that wears off.. it often makes me feel a little weak until I feel out my pace. … But it didn’t wear off and my breath stayed heavy and my heart just kept feeling louder and louder as we rounded the first mile.
Every mile was progressively slower and my mental state was not even in my normal state of feeling competitive. My heart rate was too fast and my legs (quads, hams, and calves) were all buckling up under me. It was so strange to feel this heavy tightness under me. My arms got into that as well right after the 5K mark and I felt like I could barely hold them up. The people that I had encouraged up the hills earlier on were passing me like I was standing still, although at times I was. I had to stop, I had to stretch my muscles that wouldn’t relax, and more than anything I had to breathe. But now matter what I did I couldn’t get my breathing back.
After the first two miles and into the woods a ways I told myself just to slow down a little to try to recover what I felt was too fast a start. But when my arms and legs became numb with heaviness and lactic acid caused by stress ( I imagine) I told myself to just run. Pretty soon I was stopping to walk and then I’d encourage myself to run again .. but running now was a chore so I told myself to just jog, don’t worry about the race .. just make it to the end. The end never seemed so far away. I kept up my routine of jog, stop, walk, jog. I “jogged” the race as people of all body shapes and types passed me by, with no idea of who I was or how fast I had ever been.
That was both the humiliating part and the humbling part.
Humiliated was my bruised ego that was always so satisfied after a great race. Running felt good mostly because of the outcome. But the humbling part came later, when the ego finally settled down (the next day).
I didn’t know if I’d want to race again. Ego said yes and no. Yes, to prove that I could run what I had expected to run (and I didn’t even know for sure what that was), and no, because I felt so wounded. But humility taught me
that its the joy of running that matters to me most. I didn’t enjoy that race at all. I didn’t enjoy it because I had put so much pressure on top of myself. Had I just gone out and run the run, felt it out and gone with it, that competitive thing that resides in me could have flown on the course. But the stress and pressure caused anxiety to tax my bronchials and the very muscles that I needed to race well …
From now on, I’ll not only run to enjoy but race to enjoy as well … I do believe it’s still a part of me .. but for now, that in itself remains to be seen. … Which is why I’m blogging about it!
Related posts:
