TODAY's deal is: this morning's run sucked. Bad boy looked like this:
40 minute run at 10k pace, this was supposed to be. So I got up, did some stretching for the benefit of IT band, left the house feeling fine, and couldn't make my legs more effective than logs dangling from my hips. I have no idea what the deal was - I've run for two hours with less mental energy than this took. And with less stretching beforehand!
I ended up doing 3.58 miles in 38 minutes, which is lame, but around what I had guessed I'd done as I hobbled up the steps to my house.
I've been so full of positively surprising myself lately, I guess its good to remember the tough surprises too. And once I checked my email, the theme only got more robust.
This is an excerpt an email from Danielle, my mentor / the one that convinced me I should do this - she just completed Ironman New Zealand, but apparently had some difficulty on her run:
SO here I am running like a champ and then like a light switch, it all changes. A dark cloud enters my body and everything shuts down. I see stars and I am on the verge of passing out. I had to stop and walk. I was teetering and barely conscious. I had no idea what to do as this was new territory. At the next aid station, I walked up to a medic all cross-eyed and asked her what I could do/eat to stay conscious. She grabbed my elbows and looked in my eyes which were googling all over the place. As soon as I stopped moving (first time in about 13hours at this point), my entire body cramped up on me. She basically told me, I just had to keep moving. So that is exactly what I did. I had to make a tough judgment call and had to walk the remaining 8 miles. I felt like if I ran, I would have used too much energy and I was having these awful visions of me collapsing a mile from the finish line. I knew I could just walk and look straight ahead. These 8 miles were the most insane of my life. I went to a place that I didn't know existed. I keep calling it my vision quest. I stepped out of my body completely. It was no longer mine anyway, there was nothing left. I still don't know entirely how I was moving. I lost my mind a bit and started talking to people that weren't there...I started singing to myself...I'm pretty sure they were all original songs, can't really remember. I kept repeating the mantra "keep moving forward" at least 200 times. Walking 8 miles in the dark, all by yourself, in a foreign country when you have nothing left in you is absolutely otherworldly. I could never accurately articulate that feeling, you would just have to experience it for yourself. (which I know many of you are perfectly fine not knowing) Let's just say, I know I could get through anything now. I went to depths that I didn't know were there.
AND THE THING IS, when I read that, all I want to do is this crazy race! What is it about me / her / all the stupid endurance athletes in the world that wants to push to that point? Before I muse more, the grossest video of all time:
GROOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSS. I'm positive that video was in my databank before signing up for Ironman, and I'm almost as positive that it flashed in my mind as my lips curled up into a crummy smile when I signed my paperwork to get into this mess. So that's today's question - why does watching that video at my desk at work make my legs and arms twitch, my LUNGS get eager, my brain start buzzing to get that close to nuts, or to not get that close to nuts, or to fall, or crawl, or walk or run or ..................................- that stutter is the point.
I have no idea how its going to go for me. I've seen the course; I've begun to approach some of the distances I'll be covering; I've even gotten a glimmer, here and there, of really how difficult what I'm attempting will be. But ultimately, I can't imagine how its going to be or how I'll do until I'm doing it. It sounds SO HARD! I don't think there's anything else in my life that's that hard that just comes down to me going out and doing it - all this Hollywood business depends so heavily on other people, lucky gears turning, timing and opportunity; other career worries depend on time and inscrutably small momentum over years to see turn out. This is just.........I will or I won't. Totally humbling / exciting / daunting / thrilling. Want it.
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