Run the Race
Over lunch, at our favorite hipster hole in the wall, my friend RD shared her fitness goals. Internally I snorted when she said, “If I lost 15 pounds, I would feel better.” I wondered where she kept 15 extra pounds on her petite frame.
Eating less has been the least explored aspect of my lessmoreabundantly journey. However, this week I began to cut some calories and sugar and mentally I felt clearer. Emotionally, not so much, as I made the mistake of watching myself on video delivering a speech.
It was a mistake in that control top pantyhose are a misnomer. They should be called sausage casings which merely squeeze the girth until you are shaped more like a mushroom than a woman. Apparently I lost my neck sometime prior to the meeting. I gestured like an octopus on crack.
Self deprecating humor aside, I realized I have no idea how I look or feel in my own body. I have no sense of how I fill space and what I look like.
Tonight I watched a brilliant documentary called Desert Runners (check it out here: Desert Runner Movie) It followed a group of ultra-marathoners as they ran four of the largest deserts across the globe. In one of the scenes a 56 year old crazy Irishman was in the middle of his third desert run. He was disoriented, vomiting and in pain-yet he still finished the race. In fact he completed all four. Jaime showed a remarkable ability to know how he was feeling and what he could do. He knew his physical and emotional strengths and limits. He knew what he could do and how to run his race.
Desert Runner Tremaine, a man who raced to raise money for a charity in honor of his wife who recently passed away
The film’s Director shared the difference between those who completed and those who did not. It was far less about being an elite athlete, which some were. It was more about the questions they allowed themselves to ask while running the race. Those who finished never once allowed themselves to think or speak anything other than what was the next step. Eat, rest, drink and keep putting one foot in front of the other were the focus of their Universe. Never finishing simply didn’t exist.
Eating less, praying more and loving abundantly each have become their own marathon demanding miles to go before I can sleep. Crossing the finish line I’ll feel better because I will run the race. I will take the next step. I will finish.
What is your race? Where do you have miles to go before you sleep?
Less. More. Abundantly. 
The race is the thing. Only I’m more like, an intermittent crawl-groan-walk-grunt-trip-curse-stub-my-toe kind of racer.
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In the movie, many were intermittent/crawl/grown/trip/curse “runners”. You aren’t alone!
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My first marathon was a narly experience through a desert. I wanted to quit, I really did. And the moment I started looking at the cop cars as they drove by, knowing I could get one to stop and take me to the finish line, it became that much harder.
For whatever reason, I didn’t quit. I kept it at ‘one-foot-in-front-of-the-other.’ And while I didn’t finish with a lot of finesse and grace, and was kind of bitter about the experience for a week or two afterwards, I can look back now and appreciate the endurance that took out of me.
What you said is right on- it comes down to knowing yourself and what you can do, which only comes from testing your limits. I’ve had moments in my life where I stop testing myself, and I stop knowing myself at the same time. I think there’s something to it, if you ask me.
At any rate, I loved the honest integrity behind this post. I can’t look at myself on a movie either- I never want to face what I’m really like, because then I’m always worried. How do I look right now? What is their perception of me?
In the end, it doesn’t really matter. What we perceive of ourselves is the most important, I think.
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KC-
“Knowing yourself and what you can do can only come from testing your limits.”
whoa. stopped me in my tracks.
I can’t think of the last time I really, and for true, tested my limits.
Thanks for giving me my next blog post and a fundamental question to ask of myself on a daily basis.
Thanks for sharing.
You are so right, t doesn’t really matter. In the end it’s just us and God. In the grander scheme control top pantyhose are not even a blip.
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