Going All In

My senior track season hasn’t been off to the start I hoped. I’ve been doing all the training, hitting all the times, eating right, getting enough sleep, and doing extra stretching, but it’s not working. I’m once again running times I ran in high school. What’s worse, if I ran a fast time right now I would be surprised, when fast times are supposed to be expected.

There’s good news to all this: I’ve been training since May (May of 2016, to be more accurate). I’m in great shape. I have a tremendous body of work under my feet, and that’s not going away any time soon. I just need some fine tuning, some speed work, some extra drills, some hardening of my body and my mind. That means extra hours, extra lifts, extra stretching, the list goes on. That means deep meditations, focussed recovery sessions, and more room for sleep than school work. None of that will come easy.

I’m going to have to start really pushing myself, but pushing without the fear of getting injured or burning out. Those two fears have paralyzed me up to this point in my track career: I don’t want to over work and get hurt again, and I don’t want to overwork and burn out again. With all due respect, fuck that. I’m ready to actually chase my goals, to get my mind right, and to push myself to the brink of exhaustion each day to reach my goals. I’m ready for early mornings and 3 lifts a week. I’m ready to work so hard that those desired times are expected each time I toe the line.

Never a surprise.

What’s the worst case scenario of giving these next three months my absolute best? I get injured or I burn out and I never run another good race. I let my team and myself down. I feel regret for not having done more.

Guess what: I already feel that. If I get injured or burn out because of this pursuit, I can recover in May. Then at least I will know it wasn’t meant to be. There is literally nothing to lose.

This is battle cry. I will not back down. I will fight until the very end. This is all part of the story.

Hoka fucking hey!

10 seconds

I was on a run today with 3 teammates. During the run we had to stop at a few traffic lights. We also took a couple breaks to stretch out some tight hips, shins, and backs. As we were passing by a nearby park, we decided to turn left onto the quieter, more scenic road instead of heading towards the busy room that always has traffic.

Theres a hill immediately after turning left. We ran up the hill and stopped at the top to stretch out again. This time, instead of staying in one spot and stretching, we stretched as we walked. We started running when we hit the stop sign. 10 seconds later, we heard the crash coming from behind us.

We turned around to see that a massive tree had fallen across the street, landing right where we had stopped. Relief mixed with worry as we wondered if anybody got hit. We ran back to check and, luckily, nobody had been walking, driving, or parked in the impact zone. The tree was in a fenced in yard and had broken the fence. The woman to whom the tree belonged came out and was thankful nobody got hurt (or worse). She said the tree was 85 years old and 19 feet in circumference.

If we had stopped and stretched for a little longer… If we had ran a little slower… If we had left the gym a little later…

The four of us ran home pretty shook. We looked up the whole way, making sure no other trees were close to falling. We were 10 seconds away from disaster. Wind, gravity, and old age were 10 seconds away from removing us from our bodies. 10 seconds.

I’ll be unpacking this experience a little more over the next few days and weeks. I believe this incident happened for a reason, that I was where I was for a purpose. What I know now is that “Hake Hey. Today is a Good Day to Die” certainly means a lot more to me now than it ever did before.