Training Session #48-July 31: That was then, this is now
In 2013 I was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, an autoimmune disorder that chewed a hole in my cerebellum, atrophied various muscles, impaired my vision, balance, coordination and consequently stole my confidence and my ability to run. I have dedicated the summer of 2018 to regaining my strength, coordination, balance, and relearning how to run. I am participating in a 5k run on September 23rd in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is my training journal.
This is my attempt to grow physically and mentally strong again.
Write on. Fight on.
The previous training sessions can be found here, under “Fight on- Summer Training Log”
*For 6 days I will be training in Destin, Florida.
Time:
6:50 am – 7:53 am
Conditions:
Outdoor-82 degrees
Training Maxim:
No hurry. No pause.
Training Performed:
- Jogging/walking intervals- 3.01 miles ( the longest distance since I started training)
- 50 push-ups
Quote I’m Thinking About Today:
“Short cuts make long delays.” J.R.R. Tolkien
Reflection:
On July 31, 2015 I published my first post on writeonfighton.org, a little post of strategies on how to avoid stressing over the college application essay.
Today, July 31, 2018 I published this reflection on today’s training session in which I walked/jogged a personal best 3.01 miles.
Reading old posts is like flipping through a photo album. Snapshots of who you were, what you were thinking, what you dreamed you might be and even, how little you knew.
I don’t recall what happened on July 31, 2015. Yet I do know I was dependent on high milligrams of steroids and ibuprofen to see me through the day. I know my joints and muscles ached and were weak. And know I was fearing tomorrow. Fearing a life reliant on medication.
But that was then and this now.
Today, I physically pushed myself harder then I have in 48 previous training sessions.
Today, I will not take a steroid or ibuprofen to ease my pain.
Today, I take pride in my health.
Today, I look forward to tomorrow.
From The Previous Training Session- July 30: The problem with saying “I want…”
When I was a child my grandfather use to warn me, “Watch what you say.”
“Why?”
“Because your words lead to actions.”
During training today, in the early morning Florida soup, I thought about my grandfather’s warning.
How our outward vocabulary reflects our internal landscape.
How many times have we said I want to do something. I want to write a book. I want a better job. I want to lose weight.
The problem with I want is what comes next…imagination.
I want to write a book.
And then I imagine myself at a book signing. Smiling, shaking hands, and signing my name on the first page of my best-selling book.
What I don’t see is the hours and hours and hours of doing: research and writing and editing and revising. Followed by submitting, then waiting, then rejection, then rewriting, then submitting, then waiting, then…
I want is about pleasure. I want is about satisfying our ego. I want is about the reward.
For years, when I was at my physically and mentally lowest, I wanted to run. I dreamed of running. But dreaming was all I did.
And dreaming, I believe, only made me physically and mentally weaker.
Why?
Because I wasn’t doing.
After 47 training sessions I can run again.
But the only way I learned to run again was by doing– not dreaming.
Like my grandfather tried to tell me many years ago, “your words lead to action.”
