Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Dreams of what could be...

This morning was a morning I had to beat back the bed magnet and push myself out the door. We are entering the time of year when 5:30 am is dark and today it was raining. But I made it downstairs, grabbed my obnoxious yellow BAA jacket and opened the door.

Sometimes running in the rain can be a beautiful thing, sometimes it's just wet. Today was somewhere in between. I felt pretty bad ass out there holding myself to what I now call my "fives" (five minutes walking at a 15 min pace/five minutes running around an 11 min pace) since I took last week off from life, the universe and everything.

I could have run longer and farther, but I need to be aware of my ankles. Cursing myself for the stupidity that lead to past injuries and fearing future injuries.

At one point I was lamenting my speed, or lack thereof, while I watched the real bad ass athletes going past in the other direction. That was when it hit me, I will never be fast enough.

When I was "running" a 15 min mile, I dreamed of running a 10 min mile consistently. Now I walk a 15 min mile and run around a 10-11 min mile and I long to be able to run faster. I want to run an 8 minute mile. What happens when I get there? I won't be content until I hit 6 minutes? What's the cut off: a marathon, an ultramarathon, the ironman?

Like my weight, I don't know if I'll ever be satisfied. I lament I have only shed 15 pounds after a year of Weight Watchers and still have at least 35 more to go. But when I get to goal, what will my attitude be then? When I was 125 lbs of solid muscle in college, I wasn't happy with my size. I kept thinking, "If I only could lose 10 more pounds...." I would love to be that size again when I thought I was fat.

Like the rhino on the treadmill longing to be a unicorn, at some point I will need to accept this is who I am and my boundaries. It's not to say I can't improve, only that sometimes we all need to take a step back and look at what is and celebrate.

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