The Mental Game

I will start out and admit that this has been one of the hardest years for me. It has been a year of loss in so many different ways that it is now starting to filter down and affect me. How I feel has a lot to do with "what I bring to the table" every time I lace up and prepare myself for a long run. I was so hoping to get hired for a job I applied for and thought I was a good candidate but did not hear back on Friday so I knew that it was another opportunity that did not pan out. I lost my job last March and although I have been busy doing other things to survive- I am ready to go back to work and do what I do best, but that industry has been totally decimated by the recession. Loss of income, loss of loved ones, loss of my supposed role as a working father/husband completes this year of loss for me. Saturday morning I was in such a funk with my "blues" that I could not bring myself to participate in the Alameda run with the training group- let alone get out of bed. It reminded me of all the years in high school where I would get to the starting line for just about every race and how I was expected to win the races but would be at the starting line mired in self-doubt until the starters gun would fire. Only then, would the competitor in me fire up and completely takeover my personality. I was not ready for that kind of pressure at 17, and that was the same feeling of drowning I felt early Saturday morning. I now know that I should have gotten out of bed and made the run and would have felt better- but I was not ready to bring my funk and contaminate the other runners. So I took this feeling out for my solo ten mile run allowing it to shift and percolate. When I returned, I felt better, better because I finished just as the drops of rain started, and better to realize a shift is needed to recreate myself and look outside an industry that I thought was the perfect fit for me. Now I need to bring that same intensity to recreating myself and finding a similar passion that is inherent in my running. The season of spring follows the winter of hardship that I have endured, and when it arrives- I will be ready to run the marathon. I know I have lost clock-time in the "ageing process" but I continue to gain the mental edge with the mileage that continues to build week by week. I am ready to lace up this Monday morning, and what a surprise- it's raining outside again!, but I am healthy, I have dry clothes (for the moment), and the support of family and friends as I move forward this week with a different beat of the heart, albeit a wet one.