Ready! Set! Noooo....26.2 Miles of Fear
May 27, 2017. I'm writing this nearly a week after I completed the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon, and I am beyond elated with this fact. Not only as I'm still reaming with a sense of accomplishment, but it's also a sense of relief to have this goal conquered. To be able to say....
I made it.
I made it through hard work and determination. I made it through focusing on the end result and knowing that eventually I would get there.
I made it through hard work and determination. I made it through focusing on the end result and knowing that eventually I would get there.
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| Leaping at Lambeau after a PR finish! |
But rewind to 6:15am the morning of the marathon, as I was waiting out a downpour in my car to hop out and head over to the starting line, and I would have been singing a different tune. I didn't want to get out of that car. I was terrified.
Terrified that all the work that I had put in, that all the people that were there waiting to cheer me on would be disappointed. Terrified that everyone out there was more prepared than I was and I was going to fail miserably at this.
This sense of dread, this sense of self-doubt, where does it come from? Past experiences? Reading too much into things; or reading too many things?
I purchased this Grumpy Cat book for our daughter, Julianna, not long ago. In it, his friends ask him to play with them and before they take off running, they go, "Ready, Set..." And Grumpy Cat, being the lovable character he is, goes, "No."
At 6:15am Sunday morning, I was hands down having a Grumpy Cat moment.
So what got me out of that car? One of the things that I think gets us through most hard things in life: Someone else's encouragement.
In this case, my husband could tell I was feeling anxious and was feeding into the stress of the day. He said to me, "You trained for this. This is nothing different than going out for a morning run like you do every day. There's nothing to be scared of. Just do it."
Don't be scared. Just do it.
He was 100% right in more ways than one.
First, I was scared. I was scared out of my mind about something that I had not even done yet, and this was, unfortunately, not an unfamiliar feeling for me.
Fear is a mental block that I often face in life, and mostly, it's made up of a fear of failure. Failing by not living up to my potential, by not "succeeding" as however I see that to be at that point in time. As I was finding Sunday morning, this fear is crippling, and in the past I have so often allowed fear to dictate what I would and would not do. Sitting in that car, I was looking for a way to let fear win. It was raining, hard, I forgot half my pre-race fuel at home (this would come back to bite me in the butt around Mile 23, but I'll get back to that...). I also hadn't had much time to mentally prep as the kids opted for a 5am wakeup and breakfast time, which by the time I finished this I had to run out the door.
Fear was trying to tell me, "See, today isn't your day. You shouldn't do this because if you do, you might fail."
But even with this fear, I knew my husband was right again; I should just get out and do this. Stop thinking about it, stop overanalyzing the ways this could go wrong or that I could end up not meeting my goals. Just get out of the car and do what I was there to do.
And as I was thinking about this waiting in the always fun "women runners' bathroom line" (to be fair, Cellcom does an AMAZING job with bathroom options, but it was raining so everyone was indoors), I realized that this fear was the entire reason that I had accepted this opportunity to be a Tundra Trailblazer for the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon to begin with. It was the reason why I wanted to blog about the difficulties and the true process that goes behind training for a marathon, and why I wanted to put myself out there not knowing whether or not I would succeed in the end.
I needed to get over my constant fear of failure by realizing that it's totally normal to have it; it's totally normal to fail at things. But what I should stop doing was letting this fear stop me from trying. Along the way I realized...
By the time I got to the front of the bathroom line, I had a new mindset. I was going to think positively about this race, and accept that I was doing it; fearfully, but still doing it.
And you know what? By changing my mindset (and I think with a little help from the man upstairs), things suddenly seemed to fall into place.
Where I had been bummed I hadn't been able to find my running partner, Uncle Jan, (who was running the half marathon and not starting until 1 hour after but was STILL there ready to cheer me on..if he could find me....) before I got in my start corral, I happened to look to my right as I was pushing forward and there he was! Quick High 5 and 15 seconds later I was off. Talk about crazy timing.
A mile or so in, I ran into an admirable running friend who was running her 11th (yeah, I said 11th!) marathon (GO, VAL!!), and then of all people, a friend of my husband's who he had told me to watch for came up and started to talking to us too.
Pep talks ensued, and I felt great!
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| My Happy Place |
I did have a couple water bottle issues early on due to the rain and my lack of preparation. I dropped it once as I was so wet from a quick, heavy downpour it just slipped out of my hand pouch, and after a bit of jostling around Mile 2 I also realized it was completely full of dish soap. Evidently I didn't rinse it and didn't check it before filling it and heading out the door. Thank goodness for the Mile 3 water station where I rinsed, rinsed, filled and was back on track.
The miles ticked away. The first few were easy, and I hit my first "wall" at Mile 7, which I anticipated for and knew I had to drive through. I had fueled at 45 minutes in, and just had to wait for this to kick in; the hardest part being the mental wait. My husband jumped in around this point and ran with me for a bit and before I knew it, the hard part was over.
Mile 10, Mile 11, Mile 12 - I was feeling awesome. I was a bit annoyed at Mile 14 that my watch, which plays my music, died without warning. (Ironically, this was the one thing I HAD planned out, turning off all notifications and even the GPS to use it just for music....it may be going back to the store and replaced with a Tom Tom..just saying....)
But after all that, even up to Mile 18 and 19 where again I typically feel fatigue, the timing of my fueling worked out well. I was still out in front of the 3:50 group and 10 minutes in front of my goal time of 4 hours.
Then, the hunger (or should I say hanger) hit big time.
Now I knew that the day before my nerves had allowed me to under-fuel for the race. I hadn't eaten much at all. I actually had an English Muffin in the toaster for breakfast and had to re-heat it 3 times before I finally remembered to eat it!
But outside of nerves, my food limitations were intentional to avoid getting sick miles into the race. An irritated stomach is nothing unfamiliar to me around the 15-16 mile mark, and I know I'm not alone. (They don't call them the runners trots for nothing!) But my problem was this irritation was inconsistent, and I was still trying to figure out the exact trigger during my taper runs the week prior to the race. (This is one reason nutrition is a key focus in my training for the next marathon.)
For this reason, I cut out dairy and caffeine and maybe a few things I should not have (simple sugars) 3 days prior to the race. I have a feeling the latter of the them is why I had a growling tummy at Mile 22, and the fear or irritation was the reason I refused the banana and oranges offered at this time.
And there's that word again: fear.
Fear started to kick in as I felt myself fade. I pooped out (not literally, don't worry) and lost some time from Mile 22-26. I started to fear whether or not I could finish this thing, but here's where the most crucial part of race day came into play.
I had a One Republic moment.
And by a One Republic moment, I am talking about the lyrics in their song (which I SHOULD HAVE been listening to about Mile 25...) "I Lived".
"Hope when the crowd screams out
It's screaming your name"
Now, I expected my family to be out cheering for me. They had told me they would, and it's pretty normal for them to do so.
I have a great family.
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| My family, a bunch of clowns... |
I didn't expect my family to go above and beyond in their cheer tactic and play on one of my other fears, which happens to be clowns...which was awesome and totally worked, by the way...
(That and my sister Jeni ran with me for a little bit here which helped too.)
I didn't expect the INCREDIBLE number of friends and other family that came out that day. Those that stood along the route and cheered me on and took photos, those that screamed to get my attention to make sure that I heard and saw them and knew they were rooting for me.
But even with this, I was feeling the hunger, the fatigue as I came up the last hill with 1 mile to go. And that's where I saw my kids. They were there and they were running and yelling, "Momma!!! Momma!!! Go!" And I wanted to walk. I wanted to just stop and hug them and call it a day.
But there was also another support group there that day: Those running right beside me.
Just as we passed my children and my husband, another female runner came up next to me and said this: "Come on, Momma! I saw those little angels back there and heard them cheering you on. You finish this for them."
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| Took home the sign and promptly burned it... ;) |
Wow. Just wow. Because of her, I ran the rest of that race. Because of her and everyone else out there, I made my goal by 4 minutes. And because of all those cheering me on, I knew I was going to finish and finish with pride.
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| The kids were REALLY ready to go home if you can't tell :) |
I completed my 2nd marathon at 3:56:01.
That's 14 minutes off my last full marathon. It also means I took Pippa Middleton down by like 32 seconds and the lead singer of "Deathcab for Cutie" by 33....I'm coming for Ryan Reynolds next... :) (See where you rank in the world of celebrities in this fun Runner's World article.)
My goal was a 4 hour finish, and I did that. I did it and I was proud. But most importantly, I left that marathon feeling AMAZING for 3 reasons.
1. I felt an overwhelming sense of love from the support I received before, during, and still after the race
2. I felt the effects of my training. Two days post-marathon, I felt amazing and went out for a quick couple of miles. Not even 1 week later I am back at it, working on mileage and planning out the next marathon which I will hope to run sometime this year.
3. I realized that failure is a positive experience to go through, once you choose to try.
I didn't finish this marathon in the time I would have liked, and let more than 6 minutes slip away from me just in the last few miles.
But what I lost in time, I gained in awareness of my needs at this point of the race; something I could have never gained had not tried and in some respect "failed" this time around.
So in the end, All this fear of failure has led to one thing:
I'm ready to be a failure.
I'm ready to fail, as long as I can say I tried.
Because what is life without the journey to success?
Thank you to all of you who were supporting me on this marathon journey, and know it's not over. I'm going to keep going after my goals and experience the failures and successes that come along with it.
Feel free to follow me
Or maybe.....tag along. :)
Make today your best day yet!
Jill~
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