Face Your Fears

You see, ever since I fell during the marathon, I've been afraid to fall again. I've had some bad run ins with hills, some panicky moments, but I kept telling myself I needed to fully recover from Dopey. Get my strength back. So for my run, I went to a trail that I frequent quite a bit, one I know I can do... but when I had to turn around for the third time, I got mad. At myself, at Tsunami, at the trail, and finally, at my brother (but more on that one later). I had gotten myself stuck between two inclines that I couldn't get up and ended up charging at one of them. I wasn't ready for it and ended up rolling backwards, desperately trying to stop without flipping. As Tsunami finally stilled, halfway off the trail and no longer pointing in any useful direction, I had found my answer; I was too afraid to fall and wasn't reacting like I usually do in this kind of situation.

I wrote that about 5 months ago.. if you didn't read that post, my usual reaction is to go out as soon as possible attacking hills.. going balls to the wall trying to figure out how to do it right. I was working on that still when I sprained my fingers at the end of June, then Tsunami was benched for a month. Two weekends ago, I was able to participate in the 5K I had signed up for, last weekend I did really well with my goal mileage at the Relay For Life, so this week I really worked on picking up my training schedule. Today, was my first long run; 15 miles. I figured it would be a good way to figure how much training I lost or how well all the cross training I had been doing worked.

Seems all that cross training was working on my confidence as well. I ended up going to the same trail as I spoke of in the quoted post above. First thing I did was go straight to that incline that sent me backwards. All the way there, I was making a plan on how to get up.

Then I got there. It was right in front of me. It wasn't much of an incline.

All the plans went out the window and I just headed right up. I couldn't go much farther on that part of the trail, so I soon headed back and went a different direction... towards another incline I hadn't been sure about. I went up the first part of that one, but didn't want to waste my time going all the way up just to turn around there; I can't go down the other side because I need a spotter with me to figure out how to get over a bump coming back up. This time, when I got back to the cross trail, I decided to go the direction I've never really gone before. This one immediately has an overpass, which I had seen when I was driving to the park, it had looked long and not too steep so I headed up and over. And for the next 5.5 miles, I encountered some underpasses and a couple declines that were going to get interesting on the way back. I went a little farther than I was supposed to because I was so close to the end of the trail.. can't pass that up! An older gentlemen on a bike passed me near the end and as he came up next me, he proclaimed "The key to life is to just keep moving forward. Keep on truckin'!"

I was at about 12 miles when I got to the first incline. I was tired. I sat and looked at it for a moment while I rested. I decided it was like the driveway at home and made it up just fine. That one led to a bridge to get to a crosswalk, which led across the street to get back on the trail... but to get back to the trail, there's a small, steep bump. While avoiding all the bikes that were crossing the opposite direction, I was unprepared for the bump. 

I got stuck. My front tire came up a couple inches. I rolled back just a fraction. I dug in. I pushed down the panic as I pushed down on the rim. Finally, I got the tires to move and I had a small fireworks show in my head. A few more pushes and I was at the top. I happened to look over at the car stopped at the light next to me and the guy in passenger seat was cheering me on behind his window. I gave him a bright smile and turned onto the trail.

Now I was really tired, and I knew I still had that overpass to get back over... plus I was going slightly uphill with a headwind. I took it easy the next couple miles and sat at the bottom of the overpass for a couple minutes. I'm not going to say it was easy, but I got over it.. my 15th mile beep sounded as I headed back down, but I pushed back to the cross trail before resetting my Garmin for a cool down back to the car.

During the cool down, it really dawned on me what I just accomplished:
1) I was able to pick up my training where I should be rather than where I left off
2) I proved I am stronger than I was before my injury
3) I made it up some freakin' hills that I wouldn't have been able to a few months ago
4) I did it all confidently.. at that first incline, I was even a little cocky
5) Aaaaaand I am still in one piece!

Keep on truckin'!