Road to 26.2
Thursday, January 2nd- 6 weeks, 2 days until my first full, big ass marathon
Today is a rough day, y’all. The holidays hit me hard this year, plus I’m just tired from training. Holidays are hard with all the different family dynamics, traditions, and family schedules. This season was particularly challenging. One of many reasons that I love that I have built this habit of running, I run to unspool all that stress that gets wound up and all tangled.
Plus, add in that my uterus has staged a full-on war with me this month, it’s magical. I’ve been reading Roar by Dr. Stacy Sims, and following Dr. Lara Briden, author of Period Repair Manual. Both of these resources have incredible information about nutrition, fitness, and health specifically for women and female athletes. One of my goals this month is really getting some strategies in place and an action plan through my cycle for better performance, working with hormones instead of letting them run me off to the couch, like today. Tracking my protein and ensuring that I am getting enough fuel will also be a lot more beneficial, as a distance runner as well as just a plain old almost-40-year-old woman.
We all have times of stress and down days. What do we do about it? It depends. Sometimes it is best for you to have a full recovery day, binge watch some TV and eat soup. Sometimes that is the exact opposite for what will help your mental and physical health. Many times the cure is somewhere between running 10 miles and sleeping all day.
This morning I woke up, late because apparently sleepy me decided I didn’t need an alarm. I abhor waking up late (aka past 7am) because I feel like I’m wasting the day. My energy is generally better in the morning, so a 5am wake up gives me hours of productivity and positive action. So this morning, I woke up late, I had massive cramps and a headache. After I took care of the dog and some cleaning, I headed back to bed. I needed some more time to just be still and I was feeling literally drunk with pain.
After about twenty minutes, I said to myself, ‘I ran 16 miles with intense period pain, so I can at least get up and get my day started.”
THIS. Y’all THIS. This is why we must do hard physical things and achieve big goals. It is so that when you encounter hard things in everyday life and difficult days, you have something propping you up and tell you to go on. You have actual evidence of how strong and capable you are. There is a tape in your head that plays back to you, “You have already done this, so you for sure can do that!”
I hope that this year you can work towards achieving a big goal of yours, a hairy scary goal. The person you become on the journey towards that goal is the true gift. Make the first brave and bold step of committing to it, and then in small, slow steps, take forward action every day. The ripples from your decision will have an impact beyond what you can see now. Do hard things. Challenge yourself. You’re worth it and so is every area of your life.
Xo,
Ellie
Ellie Schreiner's Blog 