i recently decided to train for a half marathon. why? because i have never been good at running. i know it sounds funky, but i'll explain it.
i vividly remember all those "presidential fitness" challenges we were forced to do back in elementary and middle school days. how fast can you run a mile, how many push ups can you do, how far can you go on the v-sit? the v-sit was always my favorite back in the day. it wasn't until i thought about it just now that i realized how ridiculous it is that us girls had to run miles upon miles in our knee length pleated skirts and starched white blouses & ties. the guys, of course, zoomed on ahead in their relatively aerodynamic trousers and polos. still ridiculous, but not nearly as absurd as having to run in those crazy overpriced purple plaid pleated monstrosities that accompanied me through my "tween" years. the running days were my least favorite. i can still to this day feel the band of the skirt digging into my waist. not to mention, the tanbark from the "track" in my shoes, and those awful, awful shin splints that started almost immediately. i recently went to a running store to get fitted for proper shoes and found out that the shin splints were because i've been wearing the wrong shoe size & type my whole life. if that sounds like you, please go get fitted. i promise you, it's life changing & so worth the time and investment.
anyways. going back to how "i will never willingly run" turned into "im signing up for a half marathon".
it doesn't quite make sense at first, but in my head, it's a perfectly logical next step in my journey through growth. back in college, just after freshman year, i realized i'd have to take physics to get my degree in biology. yet another wacky requirement i don't quite enjoy thinking much about, but that's besides the point. the point is, physics gave me nightmares.
yep, these are the uniforms that we not only performed christmas carols in, but we ran presidential fitness challenges in. getting our money's worth out of it i guess...
i refused to take it while i took a courseload of other tough science courses, so my family & i decided that i could take it as a summer class series at santa clara university back home. long story short, i got a C+ in physics 1 and i was devastated. i had worked hard in that class. i spent 6 hours a day in the scu library trying to hammer down what we'd learned in the 4 hours of class and 2 hours of office hours prior to that. then i'd go home for dinner and study more until my eyes closed & the roller coaster and ball dropping problems i'd been trying to figure out all day came to play themselves out in my dreams...nope, nevermind, those were definitely nightmares. all that for a c+. as pathetic as it may sound, i complained and cried a lot over this. as an 18 year just getting used to the world beyond high school, the bittersweet song of failure was not something i had yet grown accustomed to. however, i am pleased to report that my stubbornness has been with me since day 1 and it actually served me quite well this time around. over the one week break before the next semester (this was an accelerated course, so it was a semester full of physics in 6 weeks), i let my sadness slip away, talked all the smack i could about how unnecessary physics is. but then i got excited. not excited like when youre waiting for your best friend to open that gift you got them but couldn't tell them about because it'd ruin the surprise. excited like "ohhhhh man you really thought you got me, didn't you? let's chat about that". except not as threatening or vengeful. well actually, no. we're talking about physics. it was vengeful.
i didn't take any pictures of me studying physics that summer, but this is an unrelated picture of a friendventure from my week in between the C+ and A-. we went to a little swimming hole in santa cruz & had lots of fun!!!
that feeling kept me going for the whole 6 weeks. i wasn't miserable while studying for physics anymore. it wasn't about physics at all. it was about ME. it was personal now. i had convinced myself that i AM capable, i CAN do it, and i WILL do it. this was a personal vendetta, and physics was just the vessel carrying the message. every hour i spent and every notebook that fell victim to my scribbles of diagrams & scribbles wasn't for anyone or anything but me.
i made it about myself and that made all the difference. every victory become a personal victory, and every failure became a redirection - a reminder that i am capable.
6 weeks later, i was invigorated and full of energy. that "A-" on my report card is the best "A-" i have ever gotten because it was all mine. i fought for it.
i know it sounds dramatic, and i'm not going to lie, i'm definitely being a tad dramatic about physics. i WISH it were as full of excitement as im making it out to be. the sentiment is still true though - this fight against physics taught me that not only am i capable, but that i am a formidable opponent. i'm not saying that i ever want to take physics again in my life, but i did it once, and that faith in myself gave me the power to keep going full speed ahead. that doesn't mean that i have failed any less or that i magically got a solid 4.0 gpa after that. i still had my falls and they still hurt. ooooh man, did they hurt. but every time that happened, i had the strength to get back up because i knew i could. and that taste of victory is so worth fighting for.
so that brings me to running. that is why i am actively choosing to pursue something i know i struggle with. because if i can take on the hardest thing i can think to tackle at this moment, those little victories will guide my parallel endeavours as well. success guides more success.
90% of the battle is in my head. it's not about running, or physics, or anything else at all. i'm sure i will keep finding things i'm bad at - the world is brimming with opportunities to show me who's boss. but as long as i can keep learning to love the fight and find the strength to keep at it, i'll be better for the struggle.
this was my first outdoors run once i decided to start training. the last time i'd actually run outside (not on a treadmill) was probably senior year of high school for cheerleading conditioning, so that had been 6 years prior...i was really excited because i had just gotten my amazing new running shoes that evening!!!