Not Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining

I have a confession to make.  I haven’t been honest with you.  Don’t worry, I’m not 250 pounds, or a 22 year old guy or anything like that.  I just don’t have that silver lining in my life that I always tell you about.

Now, I haven’t lied.  I finished the marathon last year, completed 10 triathlons, scaled Rockefeller Center (the inside, 66 flights up in about 15 minutes.  I’m an athlete, not Spiderman.  Duh).  I just don’t always feel that sense of accomplishment and inspiration that I write about.

I didn’t mean to deceive anyone.  I know a lot of you like to read my blogs because they are exceptionally witty, and others like to see someone just like them accomplishing such feats of strength, endurance and sometimes stupidity all while working full time and raising two kids and one husband (and to any husband reading this, yes, I wrote that correctly, and yes, you’re being raised by your wife/husband/partner, too).  You want to see that it’s possible to lose weight and keep it off, all while bringing home the turkey bacon and frying it up in a pan.  And I’ve done all that.  I just don’t love it all the time.

So, why am I confessing now?  Well, I was challenged to do so.  I was talking to someone about how I write my blogs in order to help and inspire friends, family, even complete strangers, and though the facts are all true, the level of enthusiasm I write about is sometimes subjected to a little creative license.  The person I spoke with said to me, “Well, why not tell people the truth?  What would happen if you told them that you weren’t always thrilled to do everything you do?”

The conversation threw me a bit.  I already had a topic in mind for this week’s blog.  I was going to be running in a 10K race over the weekend, and not only was it my 7^th race in 8 weeks, but its completion was going to qualify me for the 2013 New York Marathon.  But we all know that I have yet to walk away from a challenge.  The gauntlet had been thrown down; I HAD to pick it up.

This morning was that 10K, that 7^th race in 8 weeks, that final qualifier for next year’s marathon. I woke up with the same lack of enthusiasm I’ve had most of my race season.  I lacked that nervous energy I used to have before races, that excitement of being able to run with thousands of other people who are just as nutty about working out as I am.  I was so nonchalant about it that I almost missed my train into the City, and I really didn’t care.  I got to the race and didn’t feel that level of excitement that I used to notice before races.  As I walked to my corral, my back screamed out a little and reminded me that I needed to stretch out before I started.  Good thing it did, or I would have completely forgotten to warm up at all.  I giggled a little as I pictured myself throwing my back out about a mile from the finish and not completing the last race that stood between me and next year’s marathon, which I hope is far enough in the future that I’ll be able to regain my mojo before I have to run it.

The race went pretty much exactly as you’d expect.  It was fine, nothing exciting.  I ran slow at the beginning, faster in the middle as I got frustrated, slow at the end as I mentally quit about 2 miles before the course did.  My pace once again was slower than pretty much any race last year.  If my races used to be eggs benedict or chocolate sundaes with nuts, whipped cream and hot fudge, this one was oatmeal.  Plain, unsweetened oatmeal. 

I took the train home and unpacked my bag.  I found my race bib that I had removed so as to reduce the number of stares I was going to get on my ride home (smelling like a high school boys’ locker room as I fermented on the train was going to be bad enough.  I didn’t need to keep my race number on to draw even more attention to myself).  I keep all my bibs in a photo album, and for each one I write a quick blurb with the name and date of the race, my time, pace, and anything exceptional that may have happened on that particular day.  I went to my album to put in my bib, and for some reason decided to start counting.  As this is my second album of race bibs and pictures, I even pulled out the first volume to get a grand total.  And guess what?  Today’s race was my FIFTIETH.  That’s right; in the three years since I’ve been running and doing races, I’ve officially completed fifty of them.  5-0.

As I put my bib into the album, I smirked a little.  Here I am, as motivated as a kid would be to write a book report on The Odyssey on the first day of summer vacation, challenged to fess up to the funk that I’ve been in – and I trip over a milestone as important as this one.  I was tasked to admit that not every dark cloud has a silver lining, and the damned thing comes and falls in my lap.

So what is this blog’s lesson?  Well, I guess it’s that it’s hard to be motivated all the time.  Ruts happen, and we all fall into them, even every day working moms who lose 70 pounds and keep it off for over 3 years.  And it’s OK.  Amazing things are happening even if we’re not paying attention to them.  So, we all need to just keep moving forward even when it sucks, because when we’re ready to get back into the swing of things, we want the swing of things to still be around.