OK, so this isn’t a mountain post, but it was a pretty amazing day for me. I have been having a very rough year with injuries, but I signed up for this half marathon in February thinking that 3 months was plenty of time to train. Well, it would have been, had I not gotten this weird patellar tendonitis/ITband syndrome/bursitis thing going on. So I only ran 2-3 times a week about 20 minutes each time, hoping that I would snap out of it. No such luck, but by then it was too late to sell or transfer my race entry, and I am WAY too cheap to let $50 go to waste like that! So I had to run it.
I recently read the book “Walking the Big Wild” by Karsten Heuer, who walked from Yellowstone to the Yukon along the Rockies while trying to raise awareness for the Y2Y initiative. I know it might sound ridiculous, but I decided I would approach this race with the same mindset as I might approach a massive multi-day walk like that- just go easy, pick away at it, and it WILL get done, eventually.
So I had no speed goals, no expectations, just to go out and enjoy the course and the people. And guess what- it WORKED! And it worked better than I could have imagined. I actually got a better time than I was expecting, and more than that, it wasn’t the least bit painful. Given that I hadn’t run more than 20 minutes for the three weeks leading up to the race, this was one of the most empowering experiences of my life. I hope that I will be able to carry over this “slow and steady wins the race” mindset to other aspects of my life, from big hikes and backpacks to paying off my student loan debt. No more expectation of instant gratification for this girl!
