Great Expectations

"Bite the bullet, old man, and don't let them think you're afraid"   -Rudyard Kipling

I've been dreading this week all summer if I'm being honest. I didn't want it to come and I didn't want to think about it. All I did all summer was be afraid of being too slow, of undertraining, of getting my butt kicked by the first week of cross country.

Then I got here. I don't know how, but by some miracle my biking, my swimming, my love of running, has pulled me through thus far. I ran nine 300m long hills on Tuesday..my fastest one being a 58. I ran a fast 55 minute training run with the guys team this morning...all the while feeling somehow perfectly fine. There is no pain in my knees. In fact there's no pain anywhere. It's difficult for me to believe.

So the good stuff: There is no pain. I get to do what I love. I'm so lucky. And don't get me wrong I'm still so thankful. 


But that said, I'm also a little bit afraid. I've gotten over the pressure put on me by my own doing. I'm not afraid of getting injured anymore. What I am still afraid of though, is what everyone else is going to think. Isn't that what we're all afraid of? No one wants to go running down the street and have someone drive past in a car and think "woa...that person is really slow".  No one wants to enter a race if they think they aren't fast enough to run it. It's the competitive nature of a runner that follows each one of us. The pace itself doesn't matter. All that matters is that whatever pace it happens to be is fast. It is for this same reason that the guys on my team are competitive all the way through what should be an "easy" 35 minute run. It's how we are. We're runners. We're competitive.

I had put my competitive nature on hold for a bit these past couple weeks. I had a lot more to concentrate on: learning to love running again and be thankful for everything that I've been given through it. *sigh* Too bad the rest of the world can't have such an outlook on running.

I read this: flotrack article yesterday and it all but threw me into full on panic mode. (To save yourself the time reading through that whole thing skip down to #5 on the women's list. ) I wish I could edit this article and add in that my track times weren't stellar due to how badly my knee hurt during the entirety of the outdoor season.

Don't get me wrong, it's exciting and flattering. I wasn't aware that people even knew who I was. But what I'm saying is that at the same time it also makes me nervous. I don't want to let down anyone because I might not be back to where I was last season.

I didn't go into last season expecting to go to Nationals. I'm not expecting to go this season. Will I be working my butt off the entire time? Absolutely. But I'm afraid of the expectations that people that I don't even know have of me.

For now, I'm still just going to concentrate on that special love of running that I have, and how thankful that I am that I'm able to go out and run for an hour pain-free. I have to remember that over and over. As runners we all need to remember that It's not about the expectations of others, but the discovery of what lies within ourselves and surpassing our own exceptions, not those of the people passing us in our cars, our training partners, our teammates, or the entire nation if you will.