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.
