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Monday, March 9, 2015

How Lucky We Are...

I have a couple of teammates that raced IMNZ last weekend, and when I posted a Facebook good luck message to them, one replied saying "We're lucky to be here, doing something this cool."  I've heard it said before and truly believe it- if you are on the start line of an Ironman, you are more than fortunate- you have the health to be able to it, the family and friends to support you, the means ($$$) to afford it, etc.  Everything else is just the cherry on top.  We can all read that and say "yep, so true" but we forget it pretty easily in the day-to-day of racing.

I did a long run yesterday after hours of talking myself into and out of it.  I ended up doing 12 miles and finishing just as the sun was setting on a beautiful day.  It hit me when I was done- how truly lucky (dare I say #blessed?) I am.  I did a 12 mile run and it was no big deal.  As much as I feel like a slacker a lot of times in terms of my training the past couple years, the fact that I can consider a double digit run to not be a big deal is something to count my lucky stars for.  Yes, it took a lot of hard work to get there, and it wasn't too long ago I was panting trying to run 2 minutes at a time, but how cool is it that we can do such epic things with our bodies?

I realized during my run as my legs started to burn that it is about a year since the saga of my hip began, which kicked off months of not running.  How lucky am I to be injury free?  When my stomach cramped up a bit and later when I shoveling in my post-run fuel, I thought about the days I was kept on clear liquids only and the energy it would take to walk the halls during a flare up. How fortunate am I that my stomach distress is from running, and not IBD?  So many days I have to psych myself up for hard workouts, and sometimes I don't win that mental battle.  I'm proposing a change of mindset- no longer will I say I "have to" do a workout, but remind myself of just how lucky I am to have the privilege of pushing my body and doing cool things.

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