I just got off the phone with my trainer and I am juggling some mixed feelings. Generally, my feelings on things are mixed. Being all kinds of upside down can put a serious damper on creative fires.
That's an "aside", by the way.
What I am trying to say is, I have some mixed feelings about a couple of things and I am going to attempt to lay them before you in plain English. Unfortunate, though that may be for all of my other-language speaking friends. Might actually read better in Japanese.
Again, I digress.
My new leg workout is the first to be unwound. I can't remember if I wrote previously about the "2- legs on the ground at the same time" thing. I was belly-aching to Maureen about the difficulty of some workout or another and she told me that "Anytime you can keep at least one foot on the ground, its a good day" ... or something to that affect. Apparently, my good days are ending and I am ... advancing? ... into the stages where feet must leave the ground. Leaps, little jumps, split-squats (I call them lunges), pop squats ... anything called "pop" sounds painful. I get to play around with these this week before we bring them on full force next week. I am a little mixed about that. I'll do it, because it's like a dare. If you lay it out there, I gotta try it. Luckily for me, up to this time, no one has dared me to do something like jump off a 12-story building. So anything she lays before me, I will do. Probably lacking in grace and downright ugly at the finish, but I will do it. I'm not sure I should call it "playing" ... and I am quite sure I should not "play" in public. (I do have some pride, after all!) So ... apprehensive is the word I would use for my attitude towards the new leg workout.
Next, Maureen is really playing on my competitive urges and seeking out all sorts of races for me to consider. Frankly, me and my sore old body are just hoping to make it past the finish line of this little one coming up in April. Yes, the Mud Runs, and Muddy Buddy races, the sprint length tri-s and the average length duathalons are very ... enticing ... to me. But I have felt so let down by my body since I started running again that I feel nervous about venturing beyond the flat-land 5k. I wish the knee was a little less determined to hurt and the legs a little less exhausted every day so that I could dash off like a gazelle in happy pursuit of all things running.
But my original thought, when I placed my fingers on the keyboard was about the women's 10k cross-country skiing event at the Olympics that I just watched. At the end of their race, these women cross the finish line and absolutely crumble. Whether they were timing in the top or the bottom, every last ounce of ability they had in their bodies was wrung out and left at that finish line. My son asked me why they were collapsing. I told him it is because they gave it everything they had and that's what we should all do for a race. If at the end of a race, you still have the energy to do more, then you did NOT give it everything you had.
I want to be like those skiers, these athletes one and all competing for the coveted Olympic Gold. I want to train smart, train hard, then run (or bike, or swim) the race of my life and leave it all at the finish line, collapsing because I have nothing left to give. I don't want to be thinking about my poor little knee, or my aching bumm, my throbbing shoulder or my burning lungs. I really want this to be the motto for my life, in every area. I want to be someone who gives it all.
I'm not there yet. I still feel the knee, the pain. I still have the doubts in my ability to finish the race, let alone actually compete in it. But I want to be there, and that is what I am going to start training my mind for, alongside my body.
But, boy do I wish I would have started a little earlier than 40 years of age!
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