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.

Rough Edges

I talk a lot about the beautiful trail next to my house. But I feel like I should finally share with you that not every bit of the beautiful trail is exactly...well...beautiful.

Some of it runs beside a sparkling lake and some of it goes under a highway overpass.
Some of it is beautifully shaded by fern bluffs and live oaks and some of it has the sun beating down on you because people can't stop building subdivisions everywhere.
Some of it is sweetly scented by wildflowers and grasses and some of it smells like an animal came upon its unfortunate demise.
Some of it runs along creeks and waterfalls and some of it takes you by a drainage ditch.

Don't get me wrong. It's the best public trail I've ever seen. It's well kept and feels safe and is such a fun, unexpected bit of nature in the city. I use it all the time, because I really do enjoy it.

But even lovely things have some rougher edges.

Today my run training was done largely on my least favorite part of the trail. A busier-than-it-should-be country road is largely visible on one side of it. There is almost no shade. (It was absolutely horrible today since we are already pushing triple digits in Texas.) It is the one and only part of the trail where I have to cross through street traffic. There's a large subdivision that leveled off what should have been a beautiful, tree-covered hill. There is always something that smells rotten in this one section where the two-lane road curves a little too quickly. (Poor critters.)

You might be wondering why, if I dislike this part so much, I would choose to run here today---and I am with you, friend. Most of the time I will go out of my way to run on the parts that I find more enjoyable. Too easy.
But the thing about my least favorite part of the trail is that it *just so happens* to be the closest access point to the trail from my house. Therefore, it will be both the very first 1.5 miles and the very last 1.5 miles of my 13.1 mile run. (This is how luck often works out for me, y'all.)

I've found that a lot of things in life work out like that, though.
We will have a drive and a dream, and so much of following that dream will take us through something lovely and good. We will see and experience so many unexpected delights along the way. But, the two roughest parts of that journey will almost always be at the start and the finish.

Starting is hard. I get it. I can almost always tell how a run is going to go after the first mile. Sometimes everything just clicks and I'm able to settle in and just coast for a while. But sometimes I burn too hot out of the gate and I struggle to correct my pacing. Sometimes the run ahead seems too daunting and it makes me hesitant to go all in. Sometimes you know that the good stuff is around the bend, but first you have to go through something all hot and stinky and unpleasant to look at.

And the end...don't even get me started on the end. Some of you are strong finishers so you might not relate, but I can find endings very discouraging. You've heard me talk about grace through perseverance enough that it should not surprise you even a little bit to hear that I finish sloppy. It's a "struggle bus" situation almost every time. Endings are where body parts are numb and almost always aching. There is almost always a hill. It's a hundred degrees at nine o'clock in the morning and there is no shade for the last 1.5 miles, so I'm almost always chaffing somewhere unfortunate. And I'm tired. So very, very tired.

***

This stinkin' Army move has put me at the start and finish line at the same time. We're at the end of our time in Texas. Chaffed by dealing with landlords, aching from dealing with strong kid emotions, feeling like we're at the uphill part of getting everything squared away on time, numb to all of the sweet kiddos' end-of-the-school-year activities (because they still have TWO MORE WEEKS! GAH!) and so very, very tired of waiting for it all to just be complete.
But then, I'm also approaching the starting line of our time in Alaska. I'm worried over whether or not we're prepared enough. Our 4,000 mile trip seems daunting to say the least. I'm anxious to see what the first leg of our road trip says about how we should do the rest of our "pacing." And if I'm being honest, I'm a bit hesitant because I don't know exactly what I'm getting myself into.

But I'm all in--for ALL of it--because I know this journey will lead me somewhere lovely and good. I'm sure there will be stinky parts along the way that are not altogether beautiful. But even so, I'm going in fully anticipating to be delighted. We'll push through the hard stuff so we won't miss out on the beautiful parts. We know that beautiful things can handle some rough edges.

And we also know that those are the kinds of things worth seeing through from beginning to end.

***

Today I trained on my least favorite part of the trail. Do you know why I practice going through the hard stuff, friend?
To teach myself that I can overcome rough edges in pursuit of lovely things.





Cheering you on, whatever leg of the race you're in.

Cloud of Witnesses

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1 NIV)

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I tend to be a pretty competitive person. It's just in my nature. When I do things, I want to do them well. I don't really have a good middle ground here.

I don't necessarily see my competitive nature as a bad thing, because I know I am mostly competing against myself and my own self doubt. I've actually come to appreciate the scrappy grit that this competitive spirit has cultivated in me. Part of me thinks that I was built this way so I wouldn't just up and quit when things started getting hard--especially because I also seem to have been built to make things more difficult for myself than necessary.

Case in point:
Trying to run 13.1 miles just because. In Texas. In May. While simultaneously planning a move outside of the continental U.S. that's happening in less than 30 days. And while trying to get the kids through this school year that just.will.not.ever.end.

Or...

Trying to write a super-insightful blog once a week with my regularly-insightful brain.

I will tell you right now, friends. I would totally skip out on this week's entry except for the fact that I had to be all big and brave and make a public page---and then I had to be all cute and clever with my hashtags and make #TuesdayNEWsday be a thing---and so now I feel like people will notice and judge if I didn't post today.

And if they do judge me, then it will mean that I've come up short--which I have definitely already done a time or two before in this blogging business.
(Sometimes I worry if the fastest way to fail is to get a bunch of people to watch me.)

I don't want to be a quitter. I don't want to be a failure. And I'm tired of feeling like I'm crashing and burning in front of my "cloud of witnesses."


***

Only, here's the thing. I realized I might be confusing the job assignment of "my cloud."
God didn't surround us with a cloud of witnesses to point their fingers and laugh at us when we fall down, or to shame us when we come up short, or to put pressure on us when we're struggling.
That is what the Accuser does. Not the cloud.

I have a cloud of witnesses to root for me when I'm down. To encourage me when I'm tired. To celebrate wildly when I'm knocking it out of the park. To show up and cheer for me every leg of the race.
(And I've been blessed with a better "cloud" than I deserve.)


So here are the things from my regularly-insightful brain that I'm cheering over all of us today:

That we would be careful to listen for the cheers and not the jeers.
That we would race toward the prize and not against one another.
That we all run the race with perseverance ...where "scrappy grit" gets the job done just fine.