Of Winning Conference and the Search for Confidence.

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous..." -Joshua 1:9


So I got to the end and burst into tears. But this time not the "I ran so bad my legs hurt so much" tears as I've become accustomed to these past few weeks but the "I'm so thankful" kind of tears. ... maybe I should start at the beginning.

I guess it starts with last two weeks. I did everything. EVERYTHING to get back that confidence that I've been missing. I searched every single workout, every trail I ran on, every running dream that I had. But finally I came to a realization. Maybe these past few weeks I had been looking in all the wrong places.

This past Saturday was the conference race for my cross country team. Aside from Regionals it's the most important meet of the season. To much of my team it IS the most important meet of the season. I wrote down all of my positive affirmations in preparation. Read them over and over and over again. And got ready to run for real.

My coach's only instructions to me were "Just go out there and run your own race. And please don't run a 2:30 for your first 800" (it was a 2:57!) before he walked away.

At UW Parkside's Wayne E. Dannehl nationally known cross country course they don't shoot a gun. They fire a cannon at the beginning of the race. And with that we were off and running.

Finally, finally somehow I found my stride. I found my confidence. After the first 800 meters I was all alone. I spent the entire race chasing down the gator that served as our pace car. 

The trails at UW-Parkside are absolutely gorgeous this time of year so I was actually quite distracted for the first couple miles.I went through the mile slightly above 6 minute pace and the 2 mile at about the same. I didn't hit my first mental block until mile 3. I threw in a surge to pick up my stride a little bit. Unfortunately right after that surge I turned a corner and staring me right in the face was a steep hill of solid mud. 

My mantra changed from "Confidence, confidence, confidence" to "Believe, believe, believe". I made it to the top of that hill, and from there the last 800 meters was all downhill and finally to the finish. Almost a minute and a half faster than I ran my previous race in. 

I got to the end and hugged my dad and burst into tears. Because I was so thankful to have found my stride again. Somehow in those four miles I found what I had been looking for all these weeks. Or maybe, I had it all along and I just remembered where to look. 

In the Long Run

"You won't realize the distance you've run until you take a look around & realize how far you've been."

First long run back. So I'm going about 50 minutes today. As I head onto a pathway in the woods, with my music blaring I suddenly see a set of eyes staring out at me from the trees. Of course my immediate, irrational thought was "bear". (in Wisconsin? Come on, Katie). But as I stopped and paused my music what it really was, was a huge horse. Now, I love horses, so obviously I'm not afraid of them. Still though, it was 6 in the morning and I was alone and the last thing I expected to see on a path in rural Wisconsin was a horse. So what did I do? Jump on it and ride bareback into town? No, I turned and ran the opposite way. Chicken.

Second long run back. It's been hot all week and by 2 minutes in I'm soaking wet. I don't think I'll ever run in anything but a sportsbra again its SO hot. My ipod is broken. On this run today however, I realize that I don't need an ipod. Sometimes there's just something about running in silence. I listen to the rhythm of my feet and my breath and somewhere along the road I make up my own song to run to. It was only a few days before that I hadn't run with a watch or music. I mean I am starting over. I might as well start from square one. No music, no time, just me and the sound of my feet.

My runs are getting longer. So now I'm actually starting to get tired on them. I'm up to an hour. My next one I head back to my old high school bike trail and crank out the run. To my own surprise I actually start out at sub-7 minute pace. At the 2.5 mile mark I'm able to stop and gather myself and pull the reins a bit. But overall I'm sweaty and exhausted and I just covered about 7.5 miles in 55 minutes.

And finally yesterday was the best one. I did the first 3 miles relatively relaxed. Once I reached mile 4 I was still feeling really good and was going a bit to fast. So I decided to tempo it instead. Each mile I even brought my pace lower and lower until by the end I ran the last 7-8 minutes at about 6min/mile pace.

By some miracle it seems like I'm running healthy again. I never expected that I would get better so fast. Interestingly enough, once I gave up on being bitter about running so little and forgot about running to win and because I "had to" was when I started getting better. Coincidence? I'd like to think not. My leg couldn't heal until my mind was. Once I started appreciating running and loving it for what it is, my leg slowly followed my heart on this path of recovery. I never would have believed it those weeks ago when I was doing 1 minute on/1 minute off barefoot around a high school football field. But still, here I am.

It's been a long journey for me this summer, back into running. But one, I think that I had to take in order to get where I am now. I love it now more than ever. All I have to remember is that we run because we love it and for no other reason.