The Gift I'm Giving Myself

'Tis the season for giving! I don't know if you shop like I do, but most of the time I end up buying as much for myself as I do for everyone else. Tell me you don't do this. I don't intentionally set out to splurge. It just happens. I guess I just lack restraint.

Today's Wednesday Word is giving. While I've been giving myself lots of gifts lately, the gift I most want to give myself is going to require a lot of self-control. But that's exactly what I need.

I'm giving myself a break.

Now, when I refer to giving myself a break, I don't mean I'm taking time off from running. I need to keep moving, both for my physical and mental fitness. I also need to maintain a base as I head into marathon training in March. What I mean by letting go is that I'm letting go of the pressure--of finish times, of paces. For those of you who know me, you realize this gift, of letting go, will be really tough for me! It will take an enormous amount of restraint. I'm competitive by nature--with others and myself--and holding back is going to be a challenge. But I do not want to spend another year mostly sidelined by injury. I want to embrace the gift that is running.

Thinking about it, I've already been heading in this direction. For every race I've run this year, I've set time goals but I've always had a backup goal of having fun. That backup goal saved me from disappointment as I failed to meet my time goals at my 3 long distance races. Having fun kept me moving and kept me smiling. It got me some pretty sweet finish line photos too!

Even my training runs have been more fun as I stop mid-run to play with yoga and jumping. After reading Cory Reese's book for Friday's book club post, I decided that I wanted to work on my jumping skills. After all, who doesn't love a good jumping picture, right? Jumping makes you feel a bit silly and as you try to fly, you can't help but smile. Smiling makes everything better, right? We've been living in a polar vortex lately. Playing around in the snow made me laugh. I videoed my attempts in a hope to capture the perfect jumping moment. Instead, I ended up looping the video of me running in circles in the snow. My 17 year old thought it was funny too, and he helped me edit it. Tell me that isn't a win!

Letting go of constraints, like a finish time, feels kind of freeing. I don't know what the future holds for me as far as running goes, and as long as I'm still able to run, I want to maximize my time on the road. If I head out for a run, and it's not going well, I want to be able to accept a slower finish time without beating myself up. That's the goal. All I want is to keep on running.

Here's the deal: I can walk if I need to. I can phone a friend to pick me up. Or I can skip a run altogether. It's not that I haven't done any of these things in the past. This gift that I'm giving myself means no judgment. No self-deprecating comments under my breath. No beating myself up over a DNF. No frustration. No tears.

Thank you, Jennifer Spangler for this. 

But let me be very clear: letting go of goal times doesn't mean not training for a race. Prior to my diagnosis of RA, I had already talked with Becky about how I wanted to train for Grandmas. I like the lower mileage approach she's used from past marathons. I want to bring back some of those CrossFit intervals we did in 2014. That plan doesn't change. From my new perspective, the plan seems to be a good one.

I'm going to work harder on restraint when it comes to pacing my runs. Marcia told me that I need to "find my gears". Like most of us, I have one speed that my legs dial into when I'm running. Holding back and running slow takes a lot of restraint. More than ever, I need to work on that.

To many of you, giving myself a break might not seem like a very good gift. But for this runner, it's the best gift I could give myself.

Run on.

What would you choose? The blue pill or the red? Run forever? Or run fast for only a few more year? What if you were promised a BQ? 

I think you know my choice.

I'm linking up with DebRuns for Wednesday Word, which is giving. I'm also linking up with Debbie, Lora, Susie, and Rachel for Coaches Corner!