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How to Start a Comeback
(posted on 02/06/08 at 11:29 pm EST, updated on 02/07/08 at 12:26 pm EST) | Once my coach and I decided to call it a season in early June last year, I had to decide what to do next. The truth is, I didn’t want to do anything. My motivation was gone. Desire: depleted. Belief, confidence, hope: they were nowhere to be found. I seriously contemplated quitting, retiring from the sport. Maybe it was time to start the next chapter of my life. Hadn’t I tried everything in my power and had still come up short? But a year short of the Olympics? Couldn’t I just give it one more year?
Sigh. Fine. But this time I wasn’t going to get my hopes up. This time I was going to put up some tall thick walls, and I was going to have to be really impressed to bring them down. Tracy Chapman’s words came to mind:
Give me one reason to stay here, and I’ll turn right back around. See I don’t wanna leave you lonely, but you gotta make me change my mind...I’m too old to go chasin’ you around, wastin’ my precious energy...
Running was going to have to prove to me that it was worth believing in, sacrificing for. I was not going to beg anymore.
I was honest with my coach, though I hated how pathetic I sounded: “I honestly don’t want to run right now. Put me on Joslyn’s recommended summer schedule so I have someone to run with, or else I don’t know if I’ll get myself out the door every day.”
So that’s what he did. Joslyn is on the Nebraska cross-country and track teams. She is also my roommate and very close friend. Her schedule for the summer was solid but low in mileage compared to the 100-mile weeks I was used to for my base training, so it would require less physical and mental energy, both of which I was low on. Since she’s my roommate, I would have someone to drag me out the door every single day.
She was used to me dragging her out the door, pushing her, giving her pep talks and lectures about nutrition, rest, and pushing yourself in the workouts and races. Now she had to do it for me. There were days here and there when she was gone visiting family. On some of those days, I’d manage to get my run in; on others I just plain wouldn’t. Don’t get me wrong; I kept busy that summer, going after a new client for my business, painting rooms in my house and putting up new doors in the upstairs. I was also starting to get the renovations on the basement bathroom going. But I dreaded every day’s run. When she was home, I’d rely on her to get us out the door. I think I was burnt out on being dedicated and getting nothing in return. So I tried some reverse-psychology on running...or was it on myself?
Nothing miraculous happened over the summer, but gradually I started to feel closer to myself again. My energy level rose to a point that seemed normal for a healthy human being. After a few weeks, I noticed that I was able to chug up those steep hills in the country with a little more ease and a little more strength than the week before. I certainly didn’t want anyone to be timing me with a stopwatch just yet, but at least it was something.
We worked our way up from 35 miles a week to 55. By then, the collegiate cross-country season was nearing and official practice would begin soon. Then I would have not one but ten women to drag me through workouts.
I vowed not to forget that I was lucky to have such a great group of women to work out with. I vowed to handle the inevitable butt-kicking with grace as I continued to climb back up that mountain toward my old self. I vowed not to beat myself up when I couldn’t hang and to not get over-eager as soon as I started to show promise. I vowed to be humble but fearless.
I stick my chest out, keep my chin up. ‘Cause sometimes, you gotta get knocked down to GET UP!
--Mystikal | | Send a Comment |
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