This photo popped up in my memories today. It was a very long drawn out post about how I needed to make a change and that I was seriously considering weight loss surgery. A year later I am still not much lighter but I am a quite a bit smaller than I was and quite frankly a lot stronger.
I won't sugar coat it at all, it has not been an easy year. I know you are thinking "But you got home.. you are at your beach.. you should be so happy." trust me I could not agree more but it just doesn't work that way. Things were just difficult, lots of changes, lots of sadness, lot of hard work, lots of tears, and lots of yelling but here I am a year later. Still kicking. Still fighting. Still training.
I have a race in 3 weeks. It's part of my unicorn series to Spartan trifecta, two races back to back days with about 35 hard obstacles.. and mud lots of mud. It is what I have been training for, yes I said it I actually trained for something, I have almost everything it takes for this. There is just one missing element. The run. My feet have been so messed up that it has just been impossible to train for that. I am going to have to wing it. I know I have the strength and determination to complete the challenge, so I am not overly concerned. I may be a little behind my team, ok a lot behind but that is ok, we will all finish.
I know you are wondering where the heck am I going with all of this, well this morning I got up and was getting ready for bootcamp and thought to myself .. "What the hell are you doing??? 5 days ago you were standing on the beach almost unable to move due to the driving pain in your feet. You have a race in 3 weeks.. bootcamp will be there after, this race is what you are training for! You aren't going to get the run back in 3 weeks anyway, but especially if you are still in pain!" So I stood there in the middle of my floor wondering who the hell just said that, because surely it was not me. Not the me that just keeps going regardless, not the me that will attempt to run down the beach in massive amounts of pain because someone told her to. Not the me that will attempt to lift up the log and put it over her shoulder that would probably take two men to do because she didn't realize it was a joke. This me doesn't give up. Who is this person giving up??
Then I sat there and thought to myself, I work tonight... tomorrow night... have training tomorrow and Friday and bootcamp graduation on Thursday and a 5k on Saturday and work again Saturday night. That is a lot on top of my 9 to 5 not to mention it is a lot of feet time. So what about this morning, why was the voice screaming in my head to slow my roll, to put the braces back on and give the feet that 2 hours of rest? Because for the first time the athlete in me was louder than the just do it to be doing it me. The athlete took in the whole picture and the goal, not just the right here right this minute.
As I sat here and contemplated these things this morning I realized that part of my issue with my self worth and self image was I have never imaged I could ever be an athlete. I was too fat, too slow, too hurt, but since when do any of those things define an athlete? I considered my friends athletes and I was out there doing the same things with them, but I was not. I was different, I was not good enough. Today I realized that all of those things that I felt were holding me back from greatness are not even part of the definition of who I want to be!
ath·lete/ˈaTHˌlēt/noun
1. a person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise.
No where does the definition say that you have to be skinny, or fast, or that you have to win just that you have to be proficient. Today I became an athlete, not by running on the beach, or by carrying a keg a mile, or by doing 75 burpees, today I became an athlete by listening to my body and focusing on the long term goals and facing the fact that I am good enough.
I am an athlete.. I am unbreakable.
I won't sugar coat it at all, it has not been an easy year. I know you are thinking "But you got home.. you are at your beach.. you should be so happy." trust me I could not agree more but it just doesn't work that way. Things were just difficult, lots of changes, lots of sadness, lot of hard work, lots of tears, and lots of yelling but here I am a year later. Still kicking. Still fighting. Still training.
I have a race in 3 weeks. It's part of my unicorn series to Spartan trifecta, two races back to back days with about 35 hard obstacles.. and mud lots of mud. It is what I have been training for, yes I said it I actually trained for something, I have almost everything it takes for this. There is just one missing element. The run. My feet have been so messed up that it has just been impossible to train for that. I am going to have to wing it. I know I have the strength and determination to complete the challenge, so I am not overly concerned. I may be a little behind my team, ok a lot behind but that is ok, we will all finish.
I know you are wondering where the heck am I going with all of this, well this morning I got up and was getting ready for bootcamp and thought to myself .. "What the hell are you doing??? 5 days ago you were standing on the beach almost unable to move due to the driving pain in your feet. You have a race in 3 weeks.. bootcamp will be there after, this race is what you are training for! You aren't going to get the run back in 3 weeks anyway, but especially if you are still in pain!" So I stood there in the middle of my floor wondering who the hell just said that, because surely it was not me. Not the me that just keeps going regardless, not the me that will attempt to run down the beach in massive amounts of pain because someone told her to. Not the me that will attempt to lift up the log and put it over her shoulder that would probably take two men to do because she didn't realize it was a joke. This me doesn't give up. Who is this person giving up??
Then I sat there and thought to myself, I work tonight... tomorrow night... have training tomorrow and Friday and bootcamp graduation on Thursday and a 5k on Saturday and work again Saturday night. That is a lot on top of my 9 to 5 not to mention it is a lot of feet time. So what about this morning, why was the voice screaming in my head to slow my roll, to put the braces back on and give the feet that 2 hours of rest? Because for the first time the athlete in me was louder than the just do it to be doing it me. The athlete took in the whole picture and the goal, not just the right here right this minute.
As I sat here and contemplated these things this morning I realized that part of my issue with my self worth and self image was I have never imaged I could ever be an athlete. I was too fat, too slow, too hurt, but since when do any of those things define an athlete? I considered my friends athletes and I was out there doing the same things with them, but I was not. I was different, I was not good enough. Today I realized that all of those things that I felt were holding me back from greatness are not even part of the definition of who I want to be!
ath·lete/ˈaTHˌlēt/noun
1. a person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise.
No where does the definition say that you have to be skinny, or fast, or that you have to win just that you have to be proficient. Today I became an athlete, not by running on the beach, or by carrying a keg a mile, or by doing 75 burpees, today I became an athlete by listening to my body and focusing on the long term goals and facing the fact that I am good enough.
I am an athlete.. I am unbreakable.
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