Endurance - Outside the Box (While Inside the House)

So… I’ve kind of embarked on something odd, a little silly probably, and I had told myself I wouldn’t really talk about it at all until afterwards… until after it was done and completed, you know… just in case I can’t actually do it. If I can’t do it, can’t actually finish it, then if no one even knew about it, I won’t really have failed it.

Well, if it’s something I can’t actually finish, I will of course have failed myself, but at least I won’t have to tell anyone else about it, right?!?

I am one who rarely chooses to embark on anything that I might not be able to finish or accomplish. It’s one of those things you are both proud of, and ashamed of, all at the same time. Now, I’m not one that has a fairly low bar of achievement expectancy, don’t get me wrong. I’d have to say I am actually slightly on the manic, driven, side of things if I’m honest… I’m usually up for a good challenge, and I am always busy doing something. But, if that something is presented to me in a way that makes me wonder if I can, could, should even take it on, I usually will decline.

I would rather not even try, then try and fail.

Failure. Of course that is a term that is viewed at differently, as through the eyes of each beholder. To some not completing something may not exactly be a “failure” - it may simply be viewed in a more positive light, perhaps used as a measurement of how far they have come … rather than how far they didn’t make it.

I’m definitely one that views life through the glass half empty mentality. I try really hard to look on the bright side, the hopeful side, the positive side, the encouraging side, the “I’m enough” side - but truth be told, that is just not how this brain of mine is wired. All my life I have battled the inner demons of not enough, failure, self doubt… All.my.life.

Looking back, I may not have actually failed at many things. I am one that usually won’t take on anything upfront that I fear I may fail at, and the things that I have battled and battled and battled and finally allowed myself to throw my hands up to in defeat… well those are things that I have also said that if I was going to fail at something, it wasn’t going to be small.

If I was going to down - I was going down with all guns blazing, go big or go home. I fell hard and failed big. It is probably a very good thing I have led a life as guarded and controlled as I have. I don’t want to even think about some of the alternate life routes I could have ended up going down.

All this being said, back to that odd and silly thing I mentioned earlier… the one I wasn’t going to mention at all, but then did… I will try attempt to explain what I’m currently training for and why.

From the very first post I saw of @manderbeez on instagram two years ago as she ran, documented, selfied with the characters and shared her weekend, I immediately fell in love with the idea of the RunDisney Marathon Weekend! In mid January Disneyworld hosts a running event that is four days in a row. You run through the Disney parks (before they even open) with tons of other excited runners, many glammed up in super fun costumes and running gear. The characters are out, the medals are amazing, and it’s all under the stars and magic glitter of Disney! Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. 5K, 10K, Half Marathon, Full Marathon, with an extra medal at the completion of all four races. Ummmmm #swoon.

I immediately put it on my bucket list!

And then I began researching it all. Oh my it’s expensive, and the registration fee’s don’t even cover the park passes if you want to either stay or go back after the race to spend time at each park. Airfare, hotel, food, time off work… heck we were still paying off credit cards from our family vacation there a few months prior. Apparently registration also fills up incredibly fast, and if I’m honest, I think the thing that really kept pricking me in the back of my mind… I am one that is very self competitive with myself. I train hard for my races, and I don’t stop during. I also have an unbelievable love for photos, selfies, and life size Disney characters. I knew I would have to either allow myself to run the entire way and skip all the stop possibilities and opportunities, or I would have to allow myself the grace to run and truly not care about my finishing time. Oh, that was a tricky tricky little mind game going on, I will not lie.

I knew 2019 was not going to be the year, so I told myself 2020. I would have “2020” vision for training and completing the Disney Marathon Weekend in January 2020. Oh I thought I was so cleaver with that one. :-)

But, life does not always have the same clarity and vision. I changed jobs and have less time off, we have medical bills, repair bills, we have so many things going on, and I just knew I could not actually follow through with signing up (or at least attempting to sign myself up) for that race in 2020.

So I decided to be a little creative in my thinking and my expectations of the actual event.

I decided to sign up for the RunDisney’s Summer Shorts - which is a virtual 5K race that they had this past summer. You could sign up for one month, two months, or you could sign up to do all 3 months of their virtual 5k’s over the summer, and you would get a bonus 4th completion medal when you completed all of them, all mailed to your house. And I began toying with the idea of training to do it as the DopeyChallenge over the 4th of July weekend in Minnesota at the lake.

April came. May came, no medals. The first race was supposed to be for June and I thought for sure they’d have all arrived by then. There was a lot of social media talk about it as well from other wondering runners… and it came out the medals weren’t even going to start shipping until mid to end of August. Well, I am not one to run a race without a medal at the finish, sorry… but that’s just me. At first I was upset, but soon I found another virtual option, which I ordered and was assured would arrive before my July race (and honestly, was more than ok with giving up any thought of having to do a full 26.2 distance again.)

And that attempt, well, it did not go as I had planned or trained. Click HERE to read about that race.

In time, the Disney medals would finally arrive, and as I held them in my hands, a new idea began to form. I would run my own virtual Disney Marathon Weekend at the very same time the actual race was happening in Florida! I would do the very same Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday - 5K, 10K, Half Marathon, Full Marathon. Training would work out well to tag on to at the end of my Crazy Horse Half Marathon in October, giving me 3 months to train.

And so… I am officially training for this “thing”. And as the miles have been ramping up, I have been seriously wondering if this is something I should have decided to try accomplish or not. This morning my training run was 13.5 miles. Just for training. No crowds of people, no pre-race jitters, no t-shirts, no medals, no new mug, no massage. Just all those miles for a little penciled check mark next to it, and then on to the next day… to the next week.

At mile one I wasn’t sure if I was going to get to the end today. But somehow I did. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t pretty. It was on a treadmill for 9 miles and an elliptical for 4.5 miles at 4:00 am in my basement for Heaven’s sake.

I came up to find my family doing nothing on the couch, the house a hot mess, and promptly stepped in dog poop with my good new indoor running shoes (because those on the couch obviously weren’t watching the dog, although I was then blamed because it had to have happened after I went down at 4am). After cleaning up said mess, I proceeded to the kitchen to mix and drink some after workout recharge drink, only to dump the entire shaker on the floor before getting the lid on properly. Another mess to clean up, another surface to mop.

It was not even 7:30 am, and I was so done for the day. So done. I showered and climbed back in bed for a while.

Before drifting off back to sleep for a bit, my achy body was screaming at me, and my anxious and overwhelmed mind was also screaming at me, wondering what I was thinking attempting to take this whole challenge on. And why? And for who? Surely I am not going to ever be able to accomplish this. And since today’s mileage was that of a basic half marathon, I kept hearing myself over and over whispering it is time to just quit, just be done. Quit while it’s still achievable - I know I can, as I have in the past, completed the illusive half marathon. It wasn’t pretty but I have even accomplished the 5K, 10K, 10 mile, Half Marathon four days in a row.

Why in heaven’s name did I honestly think I could take on a challenge of this proportion? I have no idea. No idea, other than the simple fact that my entire soul lit up when I first saw those photos posted on instagram in Jan 2018 and I was like “What in the world is this?!?! I have got to find out and do this!”

But the simple reality is - I won’t ever be able to afford to do the Disney Marathon Weekend, at least within the fitness window of being able to actually attempt to complete it. This isn’t something you just start the ten year savings fund to go do. Ten years from now I will be 55. I don’t know if I’ll still be alive, if I’ll be healthy, if I’ll still be able to run, let alone even walk. I can’t, or at least I choose not to wait that long to attempt that which has set my soul on fire.

And by doing it virtually in my basement - I won’t have to worry about taking (or not taking) time and opportunity for all those character photo opps and I won’t have to worry that I might not make the time requirements for the marathon and someone will have to pick me up with a golf cart and drive me to the finish and then not get the extra “all achievement” medal because I couldn’t actually do it.

Never mind the fun, the glitz, the glam, the sparkle, the crowds, the lights, and sounds and smells of Disney all around me. Granted I know that’s a huge part of the experience, but I know that that will never be my reality to experience, so I have decided to just focus on the endurance portion I guess. The training, the mind over miles battle from within.

And the reality is, I might not be able to finish. That scares me, but I guess there must also be a small portion of me that is also intrigued by that. What if I can’t finish? Will I stop and give up at some mile marker before the 26.2 on that Saturday? What will that feel like? What will it take to actually get the best of me? Will I view it as how far I was able to get, or how far I was from being unable to finish?

Or what if… just what if… I actually can finish? Will I be able to say it was an actual race, since it was really only a “virtual” race, that was intended to really only be 3 5k’s over the course of 3 months? I don’t know. I just don’t know. I guess time will tell.  I didn’t think I’d get those miles in this morning, and somehow I did. So who knows. Who knows. Perhaps it’s time to fess up to this silly little thing I’m currently training for and just simply see if there’s anyone out there wanting to following along on my current journey which I have dubbed “Endurance Outside the Box… While Inside the House.”

Up next… 14 training miles next weekend. Will I make it, I don’t know… I just don’t honestly know. I guess it’s time to get a little more uncomfortable and push on with a little more depth and passion and perseverance than I’ve had to before. But you know, once upon a time, I would have never in my wildest dreams thought I could run, and finish, a half marathon. And I have. More than once. Several times in fact. And today, that distance became merely just another “training day” distance. Who knew.

So as I sit on the couch right now and look at my inflamed bunions, messed up toenails, and feel every muscle ache and scream with any small move, I find myself still asking…

Do I quit and not even try, or do I take a chance and keep going… I mean, who knows?!?

{ Previous Blog Post "The Girl In Black" HERE }

The Girl In Black

The other day as I was walking out to my car during my lunch break, my feet swiftly marching down concrete steps, a biting south wind upon my face, I heard the words “Food is the Enemy… Exercise is the Punishment” flitter through my mind. Part of it was like silent whisper while at the same time a clear and audible holler.

The exact juxtaposition that it is to me.

It was the most basic of concepts and reality within my life… dumbed down, cut down, whittled down to those eight jagged sharp words. A stark reality, finely and intricately etched out of the cellulite rich clay of my mind, body, and soul.

I knew instantly it was the simplified, yet heady, answer to what I’ve been running from my entire life, literally and figuratively. It’s what I’ve been operating through, it’s what I’ve been struggling with, it’s what I’ve been drowning in my entire life. It’s the mix of truth and lies that runs rich through the very marrow and veins of my entire being.

Food is the enemy and exercise is the punishment. It’s the black and white to the rainbow array of chaos that’s been nipping at my heels for nearly as long as I can remember, and there is nothing remotely enjoyable or fulfilling about either.

Oh I know it to be true, these words weren’t something brand new that was struck upon me in that moment, and yet, somehow the simplicity of it that day seemed to slam into me with a calm clarity that both seared my scars shut, while ripping them wide open all at the same time.

When it comes to food and exercise and how I view myself with the goals, priorities, expectations, and perfection perceptions that I have set upon myself, I know they are a lie. I know they are unrealistic, they are unattainable, and yet even though I clearly know the ridiculousness of it all, I still fall victim to the lies and the allure time and time again.

Dammit, it's what I want.  I want the picture I see in my head to be the same as the picture I see in my mirror. And interestingly enough... I'm also pretty sure that my minds eye is more than a little jaded in the reality in which it sees.  I stumbled upon this this summer as I viewed a photo of myself taken at a race I had run.  I kept looking at it, surprised somehow by what I saw, because that photo of me was not the me I see in the mirror every day, then again a full body photo of myself is an absurd rarity... so who actually knows.  Perhaps a different blog for a different day.

But as I continue to sit here and try process some of this, I allow myself to go back in time… back to the days of late Elementary and early Junior High. Back to the time when my body began to change, along with the bodies of those of my friends and classmates around me. And as my body changed and matured, my mind also began to change. I started to view myself through harsh and hard eyes. I started to think of myself through a lens of negativity and this driven complexity.

I’m not sure when exactly, or how it happened, but somehow I knew I was built “differently.” I wasn’t naturally thin and athletic. I wasn’t naturally graceful. I was a little too loud, a little too short, a little too heavy, and little too flat chested. Oh and my hair was a little too weird. Little Orphan Annie perms, mullets, naturally curly, humidity frizz.

All the way back then I was already self conscious of my heavy legs, my crooked nose, my hair, my loud personality that just didn’t always quite fit in.  One knows these things... we just do. Even if no one else point blank tells it to you to your face.

Oh what I wouldn’t give to go back and allow myself to look in the mirror and really see myself, the me on the inside, the me I was created to become, the me I surely should have figured out how to love better so many decades ago. My heart breaks and aches as I think of the demons I have chased and the voices and visions I have allowed to feed me so many half truths and misconceptions though all these years and all these stages of my life.

I longed to be accepted, to be loved, to be seen. (I still do.) I longed to excel at something, to meet all the goals, to be “in.” And somehow, I just was never quite enough to be “in” with the “cool crowd” so I ended up running with the "smarty" group a tier down, and then, with some deserved guilt, I would slowly leave behind those real and true friends and began to slide in to that little bit rougher crowd, you know… the “blacker” crowd. The ones that dress in black, the ones that are more of the black sheep kids.  I was surrounded by so much potential of serious trouble, and yet somewhere inside I did seem to also see some small glimmer of my own potential (and a whole lot of naivety) … just enough to keep me just on the border line between straight and narrow, and completely out of control. I know that sounds a bit odd, but it was the truth. I spent quite a bit of my time with a crowd that could have led me far far away, into so much more trouble than the little bit I did manage to find. I floated between the smarty group and the wrong group, and thankfully I still managed to tow a pretty straight line on the side of right.

And I guess I call them the “wrong group” because that’s what my parents called them, although I never quite understood that. I always felt drawn to them, those that were more wild and free, more open and artistic. I seemed to see them differently than my parents and general society. I didn’t question their outward appearance, I looked beyond. I looked inside to see their honestly, to feel their trust, to simply believe in their genuineness and inner realness, at least until given reason to not to.

I feel I spent a lot of my time growing up having to defend myself, or hide myself, or fight an upstream battle against the majority of the society around me. I remember saying over and over that I always felt I just “wasn’t of the same cloth” as my family, and it brought me, and them, unnecessary tension and mistrust. Somehow amid all of that, mixed with my people pleasing tendencies and my skewed perception of perfection and body image, the thoughts and beliefs in my mind began to become so ingrained, so defined, that they just became my truth I guess.

And that truth I carried, was that I wasn’t enough. This “not-enoughness” didn’t become apparent or pin-point recognizable until just a few years ago, after crashing rock bottom in my life and having to somehow either die at the bottom, or figure out how to start fighting my way back to life, climbing my way back up, and along the way I needed to start figuring out who I was - who I really was. And of course, at the age of forty, I had once thought I knew exactly who I was, until I wasn’t anyone at all any more… until I was bruised and beaten and battered and bloody and completely and totally lost in life.

I was lost, I was hurting, and I was justifiably angry at God.

My entire life I have lived with the demon of food control and body image issues. I defined myself by the number on the scale, by the size of clothing I wore, by the number of calories I ate, by the number of calories I burned. Every bite of food was a battle, a war, one bite away from possibly too much. And every "too much" led to punishment through excessive exercise, and, when I was younger, perhaps a few laxatives (which I can't even describe to you how that messed up my adult digestive system).  There were seasons I was in control and there were seasons I wasn’t. I was either heavy, or I was thin. I have spent very little of my life anywhere in between.

My closet (and various boxes stacked neatly in the basement) had an entire wardrobe from size 4/6 to size 14/16 that I rollercoastered back and forth between.  Sometimes it was years, sometimes it was only months.  But it was never ever forever.  I would lose knowing I would gain it all back again.  I would gain until I couldn't get into that largest set of clothes I owned... and then somehow, someway, I would get back the control and I would find the willpower to lose the weight again.

I was never sure how long each season of the teeter totter would last.

The funny thing is, that the seasons when I felt “in control,” are the seasons I was most not in control, the ED (eating disorder) was in full control, and it whispered such amazing sweet nothings in my mind that I was left feeling on top of the world because I was the one in complete and total control, or so I thought.

At the age of forty, I was rock bottom. I had lost one marriage, and nearly a second. I had lost my health and my infant child, the miracle child we found out we were carrying after nearly two decades of infertility.  That miracle child carried the 1 in 5000th odds against her when her very first chromosomes decided to split into three, instead of two.  Trisomy 18 would take her from us before we even got to hold her.

At the age of forty-two I was still rock bottom and knew it was time to either do something drastic, or… I don’t think I even knew what the “or” was going to be, I just knew I couldn’t let myself go there.

And so it began, my journey to attempt to start to heal from the inside out. Heal mentally, spiritually and physically. It was so much harder, and took so much longer, than I ever imagined. Recently I accepted that I never will be fully healed in those areas this side of Heaven. But, that also doesn’t give me the free ticket to stop trying, stop working on it, stop striving towards a healthier mind, body, and soul.

I'm fully aware it's a battle I will never ever entirely win or control, it's one I need to attempt to continue to merely just survive.  And please, no barrage of information on therapy and treatment centers.  And I'm not at all saying that this is an admission of some hidden depth of my current mindset, nor would I consider myself currently overly "ill" with this illness... but truth of the matter, ED is an illness that has seasons of dormancy and seasons of waging war, and a whole lot of docile, strategically, menacing, complacency in between the two ends.

It’s been an incredible process and journey these last several years, and it’s been quite a bumpy ride. I fight the war of these realities and allusions every single minute of the day. In my mind I know what I need to do, what I have to do, what I can do, what I should do… and yet there are days when I just can’t… or I just don’t… or I just won’t.  I'll continue to battle myself and find my body and mind in disagreement whenever I consciously examine and call them out on it.  However, if I don't consciously seek their true intentions out, they virtually go undetected in their war and sabotaging.

In my mind, all those years and years ago I set my definition and image of perfection high. Unattainably high. I allowed my brain to define it’s own description and definition of absolute perfection, and I didn’t argue with it when it solely went for outward physical appearances. I didn’t try sway it when it latched on to the stick thin, chiseled, tan, toned, lean, tall, athletic bodies and set that look high up on this perfection pedestal to longingly gaze up at all the day long. I also didn’t seem to give it a second thought for all those years as I listened to its drill sergeant rigidity barking it’s commands and screaming my failures over and over again in my mind.

I pushed, I strived, I lied, I over-did, I under-played, only to still never be enough, never reaching anything remotely near what I felt was good enough, close enough, or surely where I wanted to be at.  Never quite "happy."

As I grew up I looked for validation from my parents, but weight and exercise always became conversations and side remarks leading to shame, which would then cycle around into anger, and anger always cycles around to guilt in my mind.  All my life I felt I had to hide, had to underplay my accomplishments because the weight loss and exercise and body image and sexuality was a bad thing, a really bad thing. It was to be talked about as little as possible, and when it was brought up, it was always colored in the scarlet shade of shame and sin.  I know it was simply their way of trying to love and protect me the best way they knew how... but for some reason, their way and my way didn't exactly come out seeing, or feeling, quite the same way, and in turn I think I began to just bottle it all up, cover it with a thick layer or guilt and shame, and hide it far far away.

Throughout the years I would look for validation from the relationships I was in. I longed to be seen, to be valued, to be recognized, to be prized, to be wanted… but never fully felt I was. I always felt left behind, left out, unwanted, unneeded, invisible. And in my unseen, I would easily become bitter, and the unhappiness would fester and multiply.

I was never good enough for myself.  I was never good enough for anyone else. And perhaps the never good enough for myself simply blinded me from being able to see I was maybe good enough for everyone else.  I don't actually know...

I was a horrible person to live with with myself in my own mind, and I was horrible person to live with alongside anyone else.  I still am.  I still am.  Lord knows I wouldn't want to live with me if I didn't have to.

I admit I still stand here today looking at that photo of the girls in their short running gear standing on the track. Both are thin and toned and chiseled, one in black and one in white. The one in white is built very similar to the one in black, but the girl in black… the girl in black standing there in her two piece running outfit, smiling, is the epitome of perfection within my mind.

I want to be the girl in black. It’s what drives me, and it’s what’s killing me. It’s what gets me up every morning and gets me on that treadmill, and it’s also what drives me right back to bed in a funk, a depression, a weight so heavy on my shoulders that I can’t even lift my head up some days because of it.

The girl in black is this illusive mirage that I honestly know does not exist, or surely does not exist within the cells and molecules of this present body of mine… and yet I have let myself come to believe in its reality, and mark my failure levels against it. Rationally I know better, I do. And yet… looking at that photo I hear the hiss of distaste against what I compare it to in my mirror.

I've read several memes and quotes that running (or exercise) is a celebration of what we can do, not a punishment for what we ate.  Is that honestly true for anyone, or do we all just know that's a line of crap?  We all know it's about the control, of course it's about the control, the calories, the punishment.  There is nothing "fun" about running, there is no such thing as an "easy" run, a "shake out" run.... oh come on!  If I'm out there running or working out, I'm out there dying and not having fun and not taking it easy or lallygagging.  No, I'm out there fighting against myself, against every step, every breath, every jump, every curl, every burpee, every triple bear... do I need to go on?  That shit is hard hard... for me anyway.  It's a mind battle to even get to the start.  It's a mind and physical battle to then get through the minutes and miles of whatever thing it is I've decided to do.

If I'm honest, I know I still hold food to be the enemy. It's still the one that is trying to battle it’s way in and I’m trying to battle myself over and over again to keep it out.  And every single day, over and over and over again, I fail the battle. The food goes in.  The war is lost. The punishment begins. The miles, the muscles, the push, the drive, the punishment upon my body raging against those calories.  But all this is silently happening on some broken hamster wheel in the far reaches of my mind.  It's not my actual thoughts, just some invisible pulse always pushing its way around, trying not to be noticed, not be recognized, not be called out.

Why can’t I eat, and think about, and enjoy food for the glorious and decadent act of basic fulfillment that it is? Why can’t I run, and exercise, and work out for the endorphin high, for the basic pleasure and enjoyment of an activity that it is?  On a small level I believe I can, but if I'm honest, that line is spread very thin and far between.

Why does everything have to be so excessive, so out there, so almost out of control all the time? Why do I think I need to look like the girl in black? And why do I think that I shouldn't? I mean, honestly ~ is that a fair question to also ask?  Is my image of perfection actually wrong?  Or is the fact that it's more mentally harmful than physically wrong really the bigger issue?

I don't put the blame for my twisted and messed up mind and reality on anyone else.  I honestly didn't realize just how "different" certain portions of my brain and thoughts were from others.  I wonder if the majority of the world doesn't mentally operate the way I do.  Oh I know we all have our own sets of oddities and complexities and half truths we believe and cling to with every mighty ounce of our will power. We all have things we struggle with, hide from, battle against.

We all have those demons of something fighting within us.

Mine is different than yours, yours is different than mine, but I am pretty sure we are all one big hot mess express on the inside.  Some of us hide things, numb, cope with things, handle things better... and some just don't.  Oh if it wasn't just so hard to simply love ourselves, and love others as we were originally designed to do... before the fall of man, before the entry of sin.  Before technology. Before society became hard and harsh.  Before...

Before mind over matter reached inside and grabbed hold of our inner most feelings, thoughts, actions and interactions and began to pull and push and cut and twist and crimp and break all of those delicate intricacies of our own personal uniqueness, leaving us all in some way lost, hurting, alone and at war against both ourselves and the world around us.


Previous blog { Bedlam and Blessings The Magic Hair Chair } HERE

Next blog { Endurance - Outside the Box (Inside the House) } HERE