2022 IN REVIEW
Anything worth doing is worth taking the time to be
intentional, so here I sit, wrapping up another year. I always try to look critically, but also
positively at everything that led me to the place I find myself at the end of
the year. It is what it is, so I want to
LEARN and move forward better, with a plan coming from both the positives and
negatives of this past year.
I started off the yar with my big theme of “ALL IN”. I wanted to be “all in” for my goals. If I was going to say something, then I would
make it happen with attention, a narrow focus on the small things, as well as a
broad focus on the big picture.
My first big goal of going “all in” was in doing Shamrock
Marathon in March. I wanted to do a new
to me race- even though this race has gone on for years and I know people who
have gone down to do it, for me, I’ve just never considered going to the ocean
in the winter😊 But
this year, I wanted to commit myself to a new race- walking into something I
didn’t know about, and make it happen.
I’m really glad I did that. I
love that I have a bunch of “favorite” races (Eagleman, Annapolis/luray), but
it’s good to go somewhere and be a bit scared of the unknown. My goal was to qualify for Boston in this
marathon, and I did. I am overall happy with that- was the race a perfect
success? No, I definitely had to work so
hard and had doubts and fears (and mostly feel irritated at my GI system issues
in this race) but I had the GRIT, I was ALL IN in not giving up during this race. I proved to myself that I still had the deep
core WILLpower to get through. To
mentally persevere. As I’ve gotten
older, I wasn’t sure if I had lost that, and I honestly love that I found it
within myself to channel my no quitting fire.
My next goal was Eagleman 70.3.
The “why” behind this race was because, even though I’ve
done it about 10x, my last was a DNF. It
was a year that I just lost my mental mojo, maybe overtrained? Or maybe just lost a bit of my spark? But, I literally walked off the course back
to my car during the run course. I
literally just didn’t feel like running that day. So, I needed to get back and to FINISH
Eagleman again. I did. The goal was to finish, and I did. Would I have liked a faster time, yes, but I
came to this race, and did what I set out to do.
That was early June and I had planned to then recover/ I
knew I had travel with my daughter for a big vball tournament, and I would take
that time to recover. She ended up
getting Covid and getting it BAD, and we ended up in the Emergency room, and it
definitely took some wind out of my “life sails” for maybe a month after
that. I Just felt like I daily was just
reliving the sight of her passing out/ not being able to stand, and I just lost
some interest in pushing to my deepest levels.
It was time for me to take a few weeks and just enjoy breathing.
I got back into my efforts to get ready for end of season
races: Luray Triathlon- one of my
favorites. I came to this race to race
with everything that I had, and I did.
It was a disaster the night before the race with pre-race anxiety like
I’ve never had ever, and it showed me that I definitely have had some years off
and have some mental skills to work at, but this was GOOD. (The fact of showing up was even good after
that night!) I ended up 3rd
overall woman, and obviously was really happy with that. Not only that, but I just felt STRONG, FIT
and doing the thing I Love to do.
Nothing better.
One week later, I was at another fave: Annapolis 10 Miler. I’ll be honest- looking at this race- I
didn’t have as much of a strong “why”---- it’s just because it’s what I do the
last weekend in August! I do enjoy it,
but I realize now, I might not have had a solid enough why, as well as well
defined GOALS. I did well in the race,
am happy overall with how I did, but it was a DARN HOT HUMID morning and whoa,
it was one of the hardest A10’s I’ve ever completed. There were times I was like how am I going to
get to the finish of this thing. So,
again, I’m glad I gritted it out, proved to myself that I still have some fire
in me, some grit and finishing power. I
look back and wish I had maybe been more “numbers oriented” with this race-
trying to actual HIT a certain time, rather than just go and “run strong and
solid.” I feel like maybe that was a bit
of a cop out that I didn’t even know I was doing? I feel like this maybe wasn’t “all in” during
the prep.
With that race finished, I had one more race on my
schedule: Amelia Island ½ Marathon in
October- again – an effort to do something NEW (as well as get myself to the
OCEAN!! HAHA!) My original idea was go
and have fun- then hop in the ocean after!
However, once I started really feeling like I was holding some good
paces, PLUS this race would be relatively flat, I started realizing, I am close
to the qualifying time for NYC marathon (and I keep not getting in off of the
lottery)…. So I decided to go for it! I
had some really awesome and strong training, and was frankly LOVING IT. Then about 3 weeks before race, I got sick. I had 2 weeks of not feeling well, missed
training both of those weeks. (allergies, got 2 infections). I thought that
maybe it would just be an interesting taper, tried to get some intense shorter
workouts the week before the race in an effort to still pull together my goal,
but it didn’t happen. I still loved this
new race, I feel like I definitely learned from it (yes one thing being that a
2 week sickness prior to a half marathon (clearly this was not an actual taper)
does not work well for my body!! I did not qualify for NYC marathon, (but I
WILL.).
Somehow, this race kicked me in the ass- my calves were
super sore and I knew that even DURING the race. The weird thing was that when I traveled
home, it wasn’t my calves, but my hamstrings and hip that were KILLING me, and…
long story short: I did’t run for 2
months. I tried. I came home literally in tears. My leg did not WORK. It wasn’t just sore. I couldn’t move it. I couldn’t run. I would get to the next driveway and be all
funky and couldn’t even figure out how to land on my foot- the whole nerve down
to my foot was just pissed off and not working.
This taught me a bit.
I hadn’t been hydrating well. I hadn’t been taking care of my muscles in a
way that an athlete would. If I am going
to go for big goals, I need to hydrate, roll, take care of things in a deeper
way that addresses the fact that I’ve got some underlying body “issues.”
And I WILL. I already
have a bit of a new daily plan and am working to keep at it and hydrate, and
continue an anti-inflammatory diet, and do all the “non trainining- training
things”! does that make sense? It’s like I can do the workouts, the physical
training, the strength, but if my tissues, body, muscles aren’t overall
healthy, it won’t result in success.
So, this is kind of my year in review of RACING. Of course, that is not my whole me.
I am also doing this separately for work, family, life, and
various categories of goals and intentions that I have for myself. I am thankful that I feel I am in a place of
balance with going only in hard in some categories as what allows me to
maintain goals and expectations of myself in other “categories”. Life is always pulling, and I want to make
sure I live in alignment with my values.
No comments:
Post a Comment