Sunrise on the Mississippi

Back in the mid 1900's people flocked to Memphis, Tennessee in search of something. For some it was equal rights, equal opportunity. For some it was the music. For still others it was jobs that were found along the mighty, muddy, Mississippi River. But what it all boiled down to in the end is that they were all in search of their own American Dream and Memphis seemed to be the place to find it.
Today Memphis is as gorgeous as ever, still with the best music, and some of the nicest people in the world. And for me it was about the opportunity to pursue some of my dreams. The kind that involve running of course.

The thing about dreams, and goals is that they aren't for sure. There's no guarantee that just because you WANT to accomplish something that it's going to happen. I think that's why today we are afraid to pursue their dreams-and they never go further than just that : a dream. People back in the 1900's weren't afraid to throw their dreams out there-they gave up everything just to search for themselves in Memphis. So what has changed that makes us so hesitant to dream?

I got to thinking about this question on Sunday morning as I was running. It all started because on Saturday at the meet I ran my fastest ever mile, faster than I believed I could run. So I'm pondering this on Sunday morning as I'm running in the gorgeous Memphis weather. On one side of me is the Mississippi river. On the other side of me the sun is rising and being reflected on the Mississippi. So during the course of the sunrise I completed my 10 mile run, took in the scenes of Memphis one last time, and legitimately asked myself how fast I was willing to run to chase a dream.

Dreams involve risks. And to take a risk is to risk failing. If you tell someone your dreams and you don't accomplish them it means risking ridicule. If you fail it means that either you have to give up on that dream or you have to pick yourself back up again and start all over. So it's safer to not take those risks, not chase those dreams, to just take the safe road and not have to stare failure straight in the face.

Here's the catch. Taking the easy way out sounds safe, sounds appealing. If you don't put your dreams out there you don't have to worry about not accomplishing them. Why? Because there is nothing to accomplish in the first place. It's easy and secure and clandestine. But at the same time, without them, we are left without purpose, without drive, without direction. It may seem the logical route at the time, but in the end we are more lost than we were at the beginning.

Anything worth doing always comes with a risk, anything worth achieving  always comes with that voice of doubt in the back of your mind that whispers "What if I fail?" But it is these risks that must be taken in order to get to those dreams. Without risk we cannot do anything, we can gain nothing, we are nothing. And our dreams? We might as well not dream at all. If there is no risk, there is no dream.

Though taking these risks is never easy, never safe, in the end they are the only way to find our dreams. It is through adversity that we are able to push past failure and doubt and make our dreams a reality.

                       "But, risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering  and sorrow, but cannot learn, feel, change, grow, or love...Only a person who takes risks can be free."

Confidence. Believe. Smile.

These three words have been my drive for the past several months of my life. Maybe you don't find them quite as meaningful or empowering as I do but let me explain what it means.

This is the phrase that my coach and I came up with mid-way through the 2010 cross country season. I was at a point where I was fast but I didn't really know what it meant. I still got to the starting line of every race and doubted both myself and my ability. So one day mid-October he came up to me before a race and told me that I only had to concentrate on 3 things the entire time. C.B.S.

C=Confidence.confident in all the effort you have put into the season, confident in your God given ability, confidence, confidence, confidence…"



  B=Believe    Believe in your talent, ability, and that you belong there"

  S=Smile      …  take joy in the experience, soak it up with a smile, a deep breath & a smile does so much to relieve stress / anxiety"


It resonated within me all season. It was my driving force. It carried me all the way to Nationals. But then I pulled my IT band. I stopped running. My confidence crumbled, my belief died, and my smile faded.

So fast forward to last Friday. There I am at a last chance meet. Most athletes run last chance meets as a last chance to qualify for Nationals. Normally it would have been for me too. But this time the circumstances were slightly different, and the stakes quite a bit higher. It was my last chance to prove to myself that there was still something inside of me that was ready to run-something to hold on to, something to believe in.

Is "Don't Stop Belivin'" by Journey playing in your head yet? As I looked at the official holding up the starting gun my brain tried one last time to keep on believin' in myself. Deep breath in.

I went out easy. Let some other girl take the lead, do the work for me. The magic part happened when my legs didn't tire. They didn't quit and for the first time since cross country nationals I started to believe again.

I kept my eyes locked on the girl in front of me. I knew she was getting tired. What's more is that I knew I wasn't getting tired. I found myself repeating "Yes I can, Yes I can" I passed her with 300 short meters to go and I never looked back. I won the race by 5 seconds.

Afterwards I went on my cool down run outside. It was raining out and the college that had held the meet was right on the edge of Lake Michigan. So there I was running, in the rain, looking out over Lake Michigan on the verge of tears because I realized that whatever it was that I had lost somewhere between Nationals and this Last Chance was finally on it's way back. Whatever it was that I was afraid, I had learned to overcome. But much more than either of those two things my heart had found my legs again and I was ready to start believing in myself once more.

Just Keep Swimming

Perseverance. noun

1. steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

So for a girl who runs 10 miles for fun you'd think that this perseverance thing would be old news for me. You always hear quotes about running with perseverance, or the perseverance of a long distance runner. I admit it-I thought I knew what it meant too. But what I learned is that until recently I didn't even have a grasp of what it truly means to persevere.

Running is something that I love to do. Something I enjoy. So in a sense it's not about persevering. Why? Look at the definition above. There's no obstacles. There's no discouragement. There's just a girl and her love of running.

So rewind three months. In November, three days after NCAA National Cross Country championships I was out on a run when my Iliotibial band stopped working completely. This is not an exaggeration. All of a sudden I rounded a corner and felt a stabbing pain, and I knew that the last mile home would be a walk.
Perseverance.

After that I was banned to pool workouts. Swimming laps? Me? No thanks. At first I could only swim for 20 minutes at a time. It was so boring with no music, no other people. Just you and that black stripe that runs down each lane. Slowly....slowly but surely I got the hang of it. All of a sudden I found myself able to swim 40 minutes at a time. I learned that there's rhythm to swimming, and a peacefulness that comes with the silence. One sunny morning over Christmas break I was swimming at my local high school's pool. I saw a sign hanging up that read "Iron man Challenge: 88 laps= 2.4 miles". An obsession took hold and I found myself in that water, unwilling to get out until all 88 laps had been completed. An hour and a half later I dragged my poor body out of the pool feeling just as exhilarated as any 10 mile run.

Perseverance.

True perseverance is not found when you do something you love. You don't need it when things are easy, you don't need it in times of happiness. It comes into play when you, like me, find yourself looking at an impossible task to overcome: may it be sickness, may it relationship problems, may it be an internal struggle with yourself, may it be having 87 laps left in a pool workout. We all have our mountains to climb. One of mine was teaching myself to just keep swimming. Not just in the pool, but in life as well.

Perseverance.

Life is not easy and it's never going to be. However, it's a matter of learning to keep going, keep swimming, keep persevering. Because as long as we keep going, it will eventually come to pass. If you just keep pushing through, soon enough you'll be able to look back and see what you have accomplished, what you have conquered. Sickness will heal, broken hearts will mend, you'll get to start running again.

Perseverance.

The Presence of Fear

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself" - FDR

Quick history lesson for those that don't already know: President Roosevelt said this during his inaugural speech. It told Americans that no matter how dark of a time we go through as a country, we will in essence survive. That's my quick interpretation here's what he said...http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/

So anyways this phrase has been  going through my head a lot these past couple of days. As I've explained in my bio a large part of my life is devoted to long distance running. That means that the part that's not is usually devoted to rehabbing the injuries that I derive from said distance running.

These past few months I've been slowly but surely nursing my Illiotibial band back to health. Originally I hurt it all the way back in November during NCAA regionals--and then the following weekend I ran on it during NCAA national cross country championships.

But that's a different story for a different post. The here and now is about indoor track. I have a huge conference meet tomorrow and I've been nervous for....days. No joke. Its just that all winter the only thing I could do was swim and so I'm not exactly where I was (physically, mentally) during Nationals. It's more than a little frustrating.

My coach said something to me yesterday that really helped things click a little bit. He said he'd been thinking a lot about this and figured out what my problem is. It wasn't as I had been thinking these past few weeks a lack of self-confidence. What he made me realize is that it's a fear of failure. I fear that somehow my legs which I do still have full confidence in, will somehow fail me in a race.

So I've been thinking a lot about the definition of fear, the meaning of failure. What I've been terrified of these past few days is nothing more than my own expectations of myself, my own pressures. There's a fine line between lacking confidence and fearing failure. So what does it mean to fear fear as FDR so cryptically pointed out?

For me it means that most likely our deepest fear is that somehow our insecurities, our inadequacies, our failures ,will catch up with us and that we will disappoint not only ourselves but the people around us. But what it also means is that fear is what we make it to be. It's not that I don't believe I can run like I used to. In fact, I know that I can. I know that when my heart, and my mind, and my legs all get together once again it will be nothing short of an unstoppable force. The only thing blocking that is my intense fear that I will come up short.

It's something incredibly personal-spiritual even- for me that I'm slowly but surely making sense of. Re-evaluating my worth as a person and not just a runner, re-defining why exactly I love to run and why it means more than just winning races and getting medals.

In the end I think its about learning to run faster than your fears.  If you learn to overcome your fears there is nothing standing in the way and you're free to chase your dreams down that  homestretch.

The Very Greatest Gift

So I told you that only dramatic things happen to me. When things happen in my life they don't just happen. They come in with a bang and go out in a boom. I had hoped that something would happen so that I could put it here to give you and example....so that I would have something current for my first illustration of Silver Linings.

Be careful what you ask for. But this is one may be the most applicable yet. In fact I'm glad I get to start with this because what it shows is the greatest Silver Lining of all: Life.

This past Sunday it snowed here in Wisconsin. Not the pretty, light, fluffy stuff from Christmas movies but the cold, wet, half ice-half snow that we get here in February. Let me apply a disclaimer: I AM a good driver. In fact it seems like I'm even better than I thought. On this particular Sunday my unfortuantly strong streak of independance convinced me that I would properly be able to drive in these disgusting conditions. So I was on my way up to my boyfriend's house, on the phone with my mom, talking about something completely pointless I'm sure. All of a sudden I completely lost control of my car. My car's rear spun to the left and my nose hurdled towards the median of the 6-lane highway. I grabbed my wheel and over-corrected. Instead however, of halting to a stop the snow and ice made it impossible. My tail this time went to the left and I suddenly found myself driving the wrong way across three lanes of packed traffic. It was then that I thought the giant, black, SUV would be the last thing I ever saw.

Don't ask me how the next part happened. Or how I'm here. I saw the SUV and then I looked up and the next thing I knew I was on the shoulder. Not just the shoulder of the highway but the shoulder of an off-ramp. Perfectly safe and out of the way of traffic. I don't know how I got there. Nor will I claim to have the skills of a NASCAR and tell you I got there on my own . I also do not know how the SUV did not hit me.

So I got out of my car and there was: NO DAMAGE. I continued driving for about 10 minutes before I puttered to a stop on the side of the highway again. I got out a second time to look at my car and saw what had caused all of my problems. I hadn't lost control. I hadn't hit the median. What had happened is that my tire blew. Thats why I slid. That's how I lost control.

So there I sat on the side of the I-43 North. Alone. In a snowstorm.
Maybe sometimes that's what it takes. Because that is when I was able to calm myself down and see the lining. There were several small ones: There was no big, expensive damage done to my car. I am NOT a bad driver. All things considered: I'm quite a good driver. I got to spend some extra time with my boyfriend after he came and rescued me from the side of the highway. I didn't have a scrath on me.

Oh...and it could have been worse. I could have hit the median. I could have gotten bulldozed by the phantom SUV. I could have been hit. or killed. That's when I really stepped back and looked at it.

No matter how bad or dismal the situation. No matter what has happened to you, or the direness of the your problems, take some time first to look at the little positives in the situation. But take a step back and open your eyes a little wider. You, if nothing else have your life. This life is at the very least, the very greatest gift you ever have or ever will recieve. It can also be taken away at a moments notice. So for that be greatful for each and every day that you have during your time here and never forget that life itself is the ultimate blessing.

Isn't it nice to know?

OK......
I'm new to this so I'm going to start out with a nice and easy introduction. My name is Katie. I'm a student by definition, a runner by nature, and a Christian by choice.

As a person I've done quite a bit of growing up in the past few months of my life. I've grown as a student...but that's not really the exciting part. I've grown as a runner -thats the NCAA national cross country part...and as a Christian-that's the spiritual part. As a person I've found myself growing stronger and stronger...but there were a lot of hard lessons I learned along the way.

The current theme song of my life (ok one of them) is "The Lining is Silver" by Relient K.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMEPrXGW6v4) This is my first posting so I wont go into the gory details of what I've been through in the past few months of my life....but I'd rather focus on the important lessons that I got out of those things.

The main lesson that I learned is: Yup you guessed it: The lining is silver. My life is dramatic. I don't get very many grey areas like most normal people do. I don't have boring problems. What I have is really really really bad things only. And these really really really bad things are generally followed within a week or two by really really good things. According to Newton for every action there will be an equal and opposite reaction. And so is the balance of my life.

This blog is about my life as a runner. My life as a student. My life as a Christian. And how to find your very own silver linings in everything. But above all else it is about taking the blessing of the good with the curse of the bad and realizing that no matter how dark your cloud that you can always know that the lining is silver.