Thursday, January 31, 2013

Ouch!

Ouch...it's what my legs are saying right now.  Why?  Because I finally started training again.  Nick and I both signed up for Pacific Crest this June.  We are training with Team In Training and I'll write another post later on our connection to the Team and the Cause.  

The last six months have been nice.  I got married.  I took several vacations.  I enjoyed every bit of the busy season that comes with the holidays.  I worked late without anxiety that I was supposed to be doing something else.  I didn't exercise as much as I should have, but I worked out when I wanted to.  I did not go to the pool.  And the only run I ever went on was through concourses and airport terminals trying to catch a connection.  

Both my brain and my body told me it was ready to be done with its self-proclaimed sabbatical.  Starting again isn't easy.  No matter what I once did or how far I could once go, it doesn't matter anymore.  Because I can't do that right now.  Yes, there is muscle memory.  And, yes, it will come back eventually.  But it's going to take awhile before I don't feel nervous or anxious before a run or a ride wondering how uncomfortable I will be and playing the mind game to not compare against what I could once do (otherwise I'll just feel awful).  

The one thing I know that has stayed the same is the skewed perspective of distance.  In December, Nick and I were at Pike Place in Seattle and needed to get to Capitol Hill.  We Google-mapped it and I exclaimed, "Oh, it's only 2 miles uphill, let's just walk it.  We'll get there in 44 minutes." So we did.  A few weeks ago I was driving in Minnesota and I was on a small hill.  With most of the area being pretty flat, there was this vast expanse of space and I could see the Minneapolis skyline in the distance.  It looked so very far away.  And then I realized it was only 13 miles away.  I suppose I could run/walk there if my heart desired.  It would hurt, no doubt.  But running/walking 13 miles is still in my vocabulary.

And so another journey begins.  It will be shorter.  But that doesn't mean it will be any easier.