I'm Tired

There are moments when I think that this really isn’t worth it.  I’ve been running or trying to run for 18 months.  I’ve been trying to work my way back to moderately healthy for nearly seven years.  It’s exhausting.   The amount of energy that I expend simply talking myself back into my sneakers each week astounds me.   

I’m just so damn tired.

This was what was running through my mind as I stood by the track after the workout Tuesday night that wasn’t a run.

I’m just so damn tired.

I couldn’t get my heart rate to slow.  Thirty minutes of modified cross training had rooted me to the edge of the field.  If I sat down, I wasn’t sure I could get up.  If I walked up the stairs, I thought I might collapse.  My legs were shaking.  So I stood there.

I ran back through the workout in my mind.  Lunges, bunny hops, sprinting, crab walking, crunches, squats.  I knew the sprinting was trouble, but really, no single part of it should have done that much damage.   Then I got it – that was the magic.  The individual parts of the workout were manageable and only moderately challenging alone.  Put them together, speed them up, and you have me, standing by the side of the field, feeling like I’ve worked harder than the last race that I ran.  

Still, as I stood there shaking and tired, all I could focus on was the frustration.  All I could feel was the disappointment that it was still so hard, that there was still so much work to do.  Had I not made any progress at all?  Was it always going to feel like this?  

Wednesday morning something interesting happened.  I didn’t hurt much.  I didn’t get dizzy when I walked up the stairs.   Oh, I felt muscles that I hadn’t been acquainted with lately.  I was completely cognizant of the number of stairs I was climbing.  I was, in fact, hyperaware of that body in space thing that we usually take for granted.  But I was considerably better than ok.

As the day went on, various other muscles groups announced themselves…but so did a vague sense of something missing.  I was missing the Tuesday night run.  We had done this challenging new task but I hadn’t run…and I missed it.

I missed the sense of accomplishment when I make it back to the parking lot.  I missed the chatter of the group before we leave and the laughing congratulations when we return.  I realized, with something of a shock, that I missed the comfort of the run.

Then, like the Grinch on Christmas day, I really got it.  Tuesday night was the whole process in miniature.  Each part of the process is small and incremental, but when added together, the impact is tremendous. I am going to have very bad nights and challenging runs.  There are going to be moments when I am convinced that I am making no progress at all.  But eighteen months, four training programs and three races later, I have days when running is like dancing.   I have mornings with the group that make me smile for days.  I remember when walking across a room was a challenge and yet when April comes, I’ll run for nearly five miles and be able to walk back to the car when the race is over.

 This is maybe the lesson that I need to keep learning.  It isn’t the individual parts that make the difference, it is the whole.