Monday, December 8, 2014

"Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all."

I grew up excessively watching movies over and over again.  I was that kid who could watch the same movie literally every day (for at least 2-3 months) and never get sick of it.  It all began with Beauty and the Beast.  I can still quote lines and songs from it without dropping a beat.  Other favorites throughout the years were The Parent Trap and Princess Diaries.  The last one I excessively watched (besides Harry Potter because that has it's own category) was Pride and Prejudice.  Younger me would love to put these quotes into AIM away messages (oh way back in the day) and see who could get my references.  I always loved when one of my favorite characters accurately spoke the words I never could.

Fear can consume you.  It can limit you to not do the amazing things you are more than capable of.  Courage is fear's worst nightmare.  Courage is knowing that something else is more important than that thing that scares you.  I was raised to be courageous in all that I do and yet some fears still exist. My mom has always said fear means that you care about something.  Fear is a scary word.  That being said, 13.1 miles scares the living day lights out of me.

I don't like living in fear.  I like living with the thrill of the possibilities of what's yet to come.  I mean some fears I simply avoid at all costs and run from, but who doesn't? When I first outlined my training schedule that put that big scary 13.1 miles into perspective.  Breaking down a fear into small reasonable goals is how I find myself solving problems.  Big scary terrifying impossible take home exam of this semester for example? Broke that baby down into sections and puzzle pieces that somewhat came together (my brain is exhausted).  Big scary situation where I was moving somewhere I didn't know anyone almost a year and a half ago? Broke that down by taking it day by day.  Big scary fear of snakes? Yeah that one's not going anywhere.  I used to live completely in the future and I'm beyond thankful now that I usually I can't see past the end of the week. While I know can plan for something months in advance I prefer to look at the world with the challenges directly in front of me so I can tackle them.  Breaking down that scary and terrifying 13.1 miles into a reasonable training plan helped make it not seem scary and seem conquerable.  After all I know I'm not the first and most certainly not the last crazy person to run 13.1 miles straight.

While I had my training in place, the hectic crazy schedule of finals week and the Thanksgiving holidays knocked my usual training routine.  My cross training changed along with my eating habits. While I enjoy eating as clean as possible, I've eaten out more in the past 2 weeks than I think I did the entire semester.  That combined with the stress and sticky situations that kept piling up over the past week, my training suffered.  I tried to put mind over matter and block it out, but unfortunately all it resulted in was 2 weeks of awful runs and a growing fear of that 13.1 miles.  The good news is my race is still about 6 weeks away and I spoiled myself with a little late birthday present (hello Garmin Forerunner 220 I've been eyeing since before I was ever really a runner!) to help give me a little extra motivation.  I'm beyond ready to put the bad behind and focus on the task in front of me and take it week by week to show that 13.1 miles whose in charge!

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