I am not pleased with my performance, in fact I am embarrassed by it. I trained for 6 months in order to be able to run the entire thing. I had to walk. I had a goal time in mind and I missed it by about 4 miles.
My reality is skewed these days. A 8 mile run seems short and easy. I know just a few short months ago that wasn't the case and I know most people don't see 8 miles as short or easy. So it's hard for most people to relate to how I feel.
I have a finisher's medal hanging from me wall and a tech shirt that proclaims to the world that I ran Austin. In truth, running the Austin Marathon should count for running 2 marathons, or at least one and a half.
I drove the course on Saturday and the doubt and fear creeped back in. Those hills are hard, steep and many in the first half of the race. I kept saying out loud, maybe this was mistake and hopefully I could finish and still walk.
I took those hills well. My legs gave me everything they had and I made record time in the first 12 miles (the hardest part) but the problem is that my legs gave me everything they had and my right calf wouldn't stop cramping. The rest of the race is blur.
Blurred between the tears of anger, disappointment, and defeat I felt while having to walk. Blurred by the runners I had passed earlier now passing me. Blurred by the many thoughts racing through my head trying every trick they had to keep me motivated to keep going.
I teetered between quitting and accepting that maybe I had to walk the rest of it.
I struggled with that acceptance and as I did I kept waiting to experience that change, that self discovery everyone talked about. Was it thrilling to make it through those hills in record time? Heck yes, and it was thrilling to make it through them at all.
But what I was supposed to discover out there on that course about myself, I already knew. 1) I don't quit. 2) Compromise is almost never acceptable. 3) That I want the best out of myself 4) That I wouldn't be happy with anything less.
Maybe one of these days I'll look at my medal and the reality of the situation will sink in. That I, in 16 short months, have gone from unhealthy couch potato who was 100 pounds overweight to a marathon runner and finisher.
One day, I hope soon, I'll be proud of my accomplishment. For now, I am looking to the future. I know I can do better. I know the key is a flat course and so now I am considering trying again.
Do I realize I am wallowing in self pity? Yes. Yes, I do. But as I said my reality is skewed right now and I really need people to understand where I am right now and validate that, instead of insisting that I am just crazy for not being happy.
One lesson that is being enforced after the fact, that wasn't out on the course, I can't set such high expectations for things, accomplishments, people, without being willing to accept the disappointment that may come with them. I thought the marathon would be my pinnacle, the precipice in my life. Now I am left to realize that nothing can or has the ability to make me happy but myself.
As you are on the marathon course. You are dependent only on yourself; your preparation, conditioning, training, experience, judgment, and heart are the only things from you can draw on that can or has the ability to alter the course of your life.
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