"You don't know what you don't know."
Ancient Shining Secret...
I couldn't post this in fear that the surprise would get out. Last weekend, I snuck in a 50k. Kris turned 50 years old and was running a 100miler to celebrate. Interesting way to celebrate unless you are a ultra runner. (My birthday is in December, I will never run a ultra on my birthday unless it is somewhere warm!)
In LESS than 24 hours, we drove 6 hours to Illinois, picked Kris up at 11:30pm running 32 miles and drove 6 hours back home! We pulled an all nighter, I worked all day Saturday and drove directly to the girls, get in, get going, get back home.
Two weeks post Chemo.
Everyday I am feeling better.
"You don't know what you don't know." I didn't know HOW sick I was until I started feeling better. So many days I gutted it out grasping for moments of normalcy and not knowing that what I was doing was not normal.
I know how to dig my heels in, often faking it till I make it. I did this most days.
I have all these dreams. All these adventures to experience and I am just not willing to give those up.
I decided after not getting to run Kettle Moraine 100k in June, it didn't matter HOW I accomplished my dreams.
What mattered most was that I experienced them and not grieved over the loss of them.
Living out my dreams and goals in whatever place I was in outweighed not doing it at all.
The joy came from the accomplishment of not letting cancer steal anything more from me.
So many runs and races I struggled, I couldn't breathe, my heart was pounding and I felt nauseas, I just made it up as I went, one mile at a time.
Often times we spend too much time trying to figure things out. We try to have all the answers, we think we know where we are going.
But life isn't alwasy so clear, things are out of focus and we find ourselves running in circles.
You just have to make it up as you go. The only thing you have to do is keep going forward, never quitting. Doing it ugly is still better than not doing it at all.
Rundown: The Happy Dance.
Lacey showed up at my house for what I thought was going to be an easy track work out. "You are so overdressed...." Lacey looked at me as I was getting into her van.
I thought "I am? Your the one doing intervals, NOT ME...." As we were pulling out of my driveway she REMINDED me we were going to INDIAN SPRINGS for a 8 mile tempo run NOT running at the track. I thought I was going to throw up. I was not at all prepared to run hard. I had totally forgot we had planned this last week. I had no idea if I could do it.
Her Plan: 1 mile w/u, 6m @8:30min/mi and a 1mile c/d
"Lacey, I will do my best but don't expect me to talk....."
That girl wouldn't quit talking to me. I could barely breathe and she wanted to have a full blown conversation.
With everything but breath I DID it. I wanted to kill her every time my watch beeped and our pace was faster than 8:30.
"...just do 5 miles and we will do a 2 mile cool down...."
"NO, just run!" I was not giving up. It wasn't going to kill me, I would feel like death but it would be such a good run if I could just gut it out.
Our last mile, our cool down mile was a 11:17min/mi. 8 miles total. My Garmin notified me I had a NEW RECORD! Take that Cancer!
In Other News....I USED SHAMPOO TODAY!!
Its the lil things.
Collison:
Romans 8:18 " For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us."
What doesn't kill you will make me stronger. Strength comes in so many forms. While it would be great to get stronger and faster, I want to be stronger in many other ways.
Today when I ran with Lacey I was nervous.
- Could I keep up?
- Could I stay with her?
- How bad was it going to hurt?
I had so many thoughts. But I wrapped them up with this. "Cancer didn't kill you, this 8 mile tempo run won't either."
I just had to do it. I had to do it scared. I had to do it ugly. It didn't matter what it looked like, it just couldn't look invisible.
So Shut up and RUN Anita.
Anita.
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