Back to Basics

Several weeks ago, I challenged myself to run 13.1 miles on the beautiful trail by my house. It was not an official race, it was right in the midst of readying my house and my family for a 4000-mile move, and I planned to run it in June, in Texas--therefore, I lovingly dubbed it the "Half Outta my Mind." (Should've made a t-shirt. That was a missed opportunity, for sure.)

Y'all, I'm so happy to announce that last week
I ACTUALLY DID IT!!

(Picture or it didn't happen, right?) ;)

It's funny to me how proud I was of those numbers and that accomplishment, especially considering that the same numbers would have been sorely disappointing for me a few years before.

You see, I used to be fast.
Like, first leg in the 4x100 meter relay, fast. Like, ran my very first ever distance race at 8 minutes flat, fast. Like, not making a sub-2 half marathon means that I’ve completely failed, fast.

But I’m not who I used to be.

***

I’m not sure how many of you have heard this story before, so it’s probably time to share why I write about running all the time. A few years ago, back when I was still pretty fast, I got sick with some kind of mystery ailment. I started having the sensation that my ankles were being squeezed all the time by giant bands, and it would make my feet completely numb. A few weeks later, along with my feet, I felt the same squeezing sensation on the crown of my head and it would make the left side of my face go numb. A few weeks after that, I also began having shooting pains down my left arm. This eventually led to tremors in my left hand. I couldn’t focus on anything. I was tired and disoriented all the time.

I felt like a walking time bomb. The episodes would seem to come out of nowhere and without warning. Sometimes the shooting pains would wake me out of a dead sleep. I stopped running altogether, because I didn’t know when the next bout would strike, and it felt unsafe for me to be out on the trail if one came on.

I basically lived in a doctor's office. We did nerve conduction studies, brain MRI's, spinal MRI's, and ultrasounds. And blood work. So much blood work. Diabetes testing, Lyme’s Disease testing, all kinds of gut testing. Everything was coming up empty. We never figured out what was going on. We couldn't tell whether this was something real, or if it was brought on by anxiety (my husband was deployed,) or if it was a product from some kind of injury. (I have always been a bit rough on my parts.)

Eventually I was put on a nerve inhibitor and some migraine medicine to manage the bouts of pain and neuropathy. I had basically conceded to the fact that I was never going to be “cured” and that I would be practicing some form of symptom management for the rest of my life.

It was pretty much the pits. I cried a lot, y’all.

Along with the medication, I was sent to physical therapy twice a week after a spinal image revealed some compression. I was told that the compression did not explain all of my symptoms, and probably wouldn’t help with everything, but it could keep me from needing surgery.
For the next two months I worked on all kinds of flexibility and strength exercises. I was the only person there under the age of 50. I wanted to laugh it off, because it didn’t feel like they were making me do things that were big enough. I was a generally fit person with certifications in nutrition and fitness. I just couldn’t see how core stabilizing exercises and stretching were going to help me. I wasn’t out of shape. I wasn’t inactive. I wasn’t old. I was sick, right??

Wrong. It was amazing to me how many simple things I couldn’t do. Squeeze a ball. Squat with a band. Walk on a treadmill. Seriously, they would strap this ex-runner onto treadmills with a harness and lift me up so that I was “walking” without putting any pressure on my lower body. The more I committed to doing those exercises with perfect form, the more I realized how out of shape I truly was.
I had been humbled.

I faithfully kept my appointments for two months and did my at-home therapy as prescribed every night at home. And like some kind of crazy miracle, I started to get better. Like, WAY better. The exercises that weren’t supposed to cure me were making my other symptoms fade away. My mystery episodes were becoming fewer and further between until they quit coming altogether. I weaned myself off of the neuropathy medication that I was told I would probably need for my whole life. (And I cried a little more, y’all!!)
After a two years of feeling trapped in my body, I was free. I honestly felt brand new.

It's crazy to me that after all I had been through, the answer to my turnaround laid in some core strengthening and stability exercises.

***

I often wonder if so much of my struggling over the years stems from the fact that I am always pushing beyond my call of who God made me to be. Sometimes he gives me a job to do, and I laugh it off because it doesn’t feel “big enough.” Sometimes I put so much pressure on myself to perform and achieve that I literally crush myself under the weight of my own expectations and aspirations. I was compromising form in all sorts of areas so that I could be counted among the best.
I needed to become okay with just letting myself be okay.

The crazy thing about this seven-year-old blog is that I still tell all of my old stories from “when I was fast.” I re-post them and I remember being that girl. But I’m not her anymore.
I’ve been humbled.

-I’m not the girl who makes 27 resolutions at the start of the year. I’m the girl who maybe makes one resolution in February, if I feel like it. I’m okay with that.
-I’m not the girl raising two preschoolers and trying to promote my “expert stance” on motherhood. I’m the girl looking to other good mothers to help me figure out where I’ve screwed up and how I can fix it. I’m okay with that.
-I’m not the girl who thinks being married for four years is a “long time.” (Yes, I actually said that.) I’m the girl lucky enough to know that ten years in, our love still has a lot of growing up to do. I’m okay with that.
-I’m not the girl who runs sub-2 half marathons anymore. I’m the girl who thought she was never going to be able to run them again, and so now that she can---Praise God!---runs them just for fun. I know that it's crazy, but I REALLY AM okay with that!

-Better still, I’m not the girl who claims to know what she’s doing anymore. I’m the girl who trusts that God does. You best believe, I’m okay with that!

I don’t know if I will ever be as fast as I once was, but I’m okay with that. That girl injured herself trying to take on too much too fast. She was centered on the wrong things and it broke her down. Now I’m the girl who is learning to take on a lighter load—not because I don’t want to work, but because I need to know how carry the weight the right way.

I used to be about performance and presentation, but now I am about perseverance and grace—not because that makes everything easy, but because I’ve truly discovered more strength and stability there.

I used to be crazy, and I still am. But it’s in a brand new way.
And I'm okay with that.