June 08, 2013

Running : Discovering Your Limits

I understandmy life journey differently now.  I use my experience in running, the good and the difficult, as material to draw from in relating to others.  I see challenges from a lens of how I have experienced a marathon, or a solo run, or recovery.  Not sure if you can relate, but in conversation with people, it becomes an analogy that is quickly accessible to me.  

I am in the middle of my masters degree, and the only way I can relate this to others or to understand it myself in how I am feeling is to refer it to a marathon.  First half, you are feeling energized and alive, able to keep a steady pace.  Second half is the real grunt work.  None of a marathon is easy.  But the endurance really shows in the ability to keep moving, keep working hard.  Endurance training is a test, to find the end of one's self.  I have felt the end of myself and been rattled!  How I face life's demands and challenges suddenly gets altered in this revelation:  I have limits, and I have experienced them in a way that is emotionally jarring!  

I have seen the first bit of my running training as a discovery of the amazing sort, all honeymoon.  And then the limits were found, and now I am running to maintain, but in all honesty I feel the wind has come out of my sail a bit in my drive.  I guess I ask myself, now that I know how far I might push myself, why bother visiting that limit over and over?  I know this is probably faulty thinking, but it is a process of experiencing the journey.

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