And then every year I feel better a week or two later, go on to enjoy the summer, fall, and winter doing fun running and forget that spring is coming and neglect asthma drugs and it happens again.
Sitting here can't sleep, finished reading the book I'm on. Wasting time thinking about trivial things. Scrolling through the junk on my computer reflecting on the past.
This is a chart of my half marathon times from October 2006 to March 2012. It would be neat to have tracked my weight for every day of my life during that time, the high point on that chart would be just a few months before the slowest marathon. I weighed 60 pounds more than I did now. Seems as though my half marathon graph would match a weight graph and a happiness graph. As there is less happiness, there is more fat added, and the running takes longer. I've run the same half marathon in Kelowna in March every year since 2007, six years at the same race. My 100 mile race is March 29. The half marathon is April 7; only 8 days later. I don't think I'll be ready to run it.
When I look at the graph, I picture the space underneath it in terms of volume. Volume of my body in terms of fat, volume of my unhappiness, volume of mistakes made, volume of fear that is held too close. Not that running faster makes me happier, rather as I get happier and learn to live healthier and make better decisions my running times get faster as reflection of the other things in life being better.
Someone recently told me that it was inspiring that I maintained running through times of being not so fit, and being out of shape, keeping at it (paraphrasing). I disagree, I look at it in reverse a bit. Rather uninspiring that I allowed myself to wander down the path that took me to those places. I find it more inspiring when I look to the possible future, (maybe the two things are just different ways of saying the same thing) the space left under the graph to the right as it gets closer to the x axis. I still cling to some fears, and hopefully the amount of useless fear I cling to will disappear. I don't regret the mistakes I made that took me to the unhappy places I've been, as there was truly happy moments within those years. And I still have plenty of old habits that I'm still working my way out of.
Looking at the graph the moments of mental paradigm shifts are quite obvious. Sudden dip or increase in time seems to correlate with life choices that indicate change of thought patterns. Half marathon time goes up after I get back together with an old girlfriend whom I shared many years of previous mistakes with. Break up with her and end 8 years of stupidity and the half marathon time instantly drops. Then plateaus. Stop doing drugs and the time drops again and plateaus, hit my first AA meeting and the time drops again. The thing is there is so much more life paradigm shifts I feel I need to make. I'm very much probably currently plateauing. Who knows; but that is what I look forward to. Knowing that there is more of an untold story. Running results/growth seem to reflect self growth. And knowing that excites me for the future, and knowing that even though I feel like I'm on a plateau right now, not making any major changes, but just consistently maintaining the better version than the past version. But paradigms shifts will come, and the unknown excites, because I have much room to grow, and exciting thought from that is as much room as I have to grow myself, then I''m just getting started in terms of improving in running. The journey has just begun? I hope.
Also interesting are pictures.
Oct 2006.
And just for fun here are some comparative pictures.
Running long distances is not something I see as a physical challenge, it's a mental challenge, and my success / failure at races is a reflection of other things. The reward in the finish line isn't necessarily all the physicality needed to get there, but the mental things that had to change to get there.
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