Everyone Deserves a Break
"Go run", they said. "It will be fun", they said. They were right. What they failed to mention was how it could possibly overcome you. Many of you know how much I love running. It's something I picked up along the path to recovery. Everyone needs a passion or something they enjoy doing. It helps define you in a sense. Running has become that for me.
What I have come across, and I have yet to conquer, is accepting the bad days as I do the good days. I think my fellow runners can understand this. I've seen days that my performance is on top of the charts. I'm literally on a high note; runner's high. Lately, however, my performance has been anything but. I happen to be my worst critic; something that I need to work on obviously. Learning how to accept that it is okay to not always be on top of the game has been a huge challenge for me. Now, I am not expecting to fall under the elite category, but I do set goals that I expect to meet. When I don't meet them, I take it so personal that it puts me in a spiral of emotions.
When I first started training in 2016 for the Miami and Sarasota Half Marathon, my legs took me places. I literally didn't feel my feet on the asphalt. I was flying. Training was difficult but I was able to manage the high mileage. It almost seemed like I had done half marathons before. I put in the time and dedication to improve my time from one race to another. After Sarasota, I literally started feeling drained. Exhaustion set it. I found that I could barely pull a 5K run. Definitely not the norm for me. It led me to feel frustrated and overwhelmed. Running started feeling like a chore. I remember after a practice run, I was so disappointed with my performance that I literally got in my car and started to cry. That's when I realized that I had forgotten what running really meant to me. It wasn't meant to impact me in a negative way. That's not where it was supposed to take me. I needed to restore my passion.
I started doing some soul searching. If you know me at all, you know that I have to get to the root of the problem because it will drive me insane if I don't fix it. Period. I wanted to know exactly why I've been feeling like I have to be perfect at everything I do and why I'm so hard on myself when I'm not. When did I put it in my head that I had to be better? Or that I wasn't good enough? It hit me like a freight train, because for a moment there, I was falling back to square one. I was back in that place that I promised myself I would never go back to. I was back to where my self-esteem started slipping through my fingers and if I didn't grab a hold of it, I was going to lose myself. Lord knows I worked too hard to get to where I am now. I don't want to be the girl I was when I was in a bad marriage; when I didn't value myself and couldn't see my self-worth. That is not where I want to be.
One Tuesday, I met up with my team for a run. Even though I set my watch, I set it to count the miles, not my speed. I put on my music and I just started running. I didn't focus on trying to catch up to any of my team mates. I just ran. I allowed myself to take it easy for a change. I took advantage of that run. I allowed myself to enjoy my own company and to remind myself what it's really about. I had fallen in love all over again. It reminded me that I already am better and I'm more than good enough. I just had to remind myself of it. I needed to cut myself a break. It's okay not to be perfect at everything. I actually don't want to be perfect. I just want to be happy. It's good to push yourself and try to be better at something. There's nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is if you allow it to overcome you to the point that it leaves you in a bad place. I've been in bad and dark places before. I prefer the sun to shine.
I know my performance will improve again. I just need to allow myself some time to rest and restore. It doesn't make me any worse. It will only make me better.
For those of you out there that are struggling with something. It can be anything. Don't be too hard on yourself. Give yourself a break. Restore and be patient. Find the passion again. The pieces will come together when you do.
