I Let Myself Walk

I have a confession to make –

Running has not been fun for me lately.

This may come as a surprise to some of you, especially those of you who know how excited I am to now be a part of #TeamBeef, and to others a shock I EVER like running. Tonight I set out to run a virtual race for Beef Checkoff, #RunForThe Ribeye, to raise money for the Feeding America Food Banks. In my head I would run at a good pace, finish confident for my race on Saturday, and take a cute celebration timer pic when I was finished. Those were all thoughts before I actually made it out my door. In reality I forgot I switched my watch to km from miles since I was running a 10k and thought I was close to being halfway done when I hadn’t even made it a third of the way through yet and I was miserable. Then my thought process changed to okay, I will run all 10km no matter how slow they are, that will be my accomplishment, to at about 3.5km, running really isn’t fun right now.

Then, I gave myself permission to walk. It was in those moments I realized running was no longer fun for me and I want it to be. Sure not every run is going to be easy and I constantly have to push through mental/ physical barrier to get better. Training has it’s ups and downs but it can still be fun. I like and thrive off of challenges. I also realized by continuing to force myself to run tonight, when I wasn’t mentally enjoying it, all I was actually doing was fueling my pride and making myself hate running even more.

Walking basically serves the exact same purpose as running for me. It gets me outside, it gets me moving to help improve my mental health, and overall walking probably makes me healthier because it’s easier on the joints. So why not just walk? The same reason I don’t do a lot of things in my life and I bet a lot of other people don’t do or do things too. The unrealistic expectations created in my mind for myself, the expectations I think others have for me, and then add on top of that, my pride not being willing to show the world, I fail.

Let me provide you some examples:

• Running – I always have these times (the time is constantly changing) I am expected to run and maintain. For instance today, I was expected to be able to run a 9:50 mile for all 6 miles and since I share my run stats, everyone could see how fast I run. Plus it was for a race, so it had to be a good time. The reality – I haven’t ran in over a week, because running hasn’t been fun, so I haven’t really had the motivation to get out there and race my imaginary times. I walked close to 50% of the run tonight and ran probably my slowest race time ever. Also, nobody actually cares. Most people are proud that I even got off the couch and tried to run. I ran fast – great. I just ran – also great.
• Teaching – I need to make sure every kids that leaves my room, leaves with a better sense of self responsibility, respect, and empathy. Along with more content knowledge in whatever class they decided to take. They also need to feel loved and be handed tough love when needed to help make them a better future citizen. Every.single.kid. The reality – Do I think I’m superwomen? Because I most definitely am not! I’m a first year teacher with about 150 students who walk through my classroom doors. Some days (most days) survival is key and I’m lucky that I planned something that will keep the attention of 4 kids in the class. I can never win them all and I’ll eventually burn myself out trying.

• 

  Pre-Race with high expectations.

• 

  Post-race, learning I should have payed better attention to my students taking timer pics because I’m not very good at them.

I could keep going, but the list would get pretty lengthy and I don’t think anyone really wants to read that much about my life. Don’t get me wrong, seeing where I “should” have placed so far in this virtual race, verses where I actually fell, stings a little and bothers me, but I chose to walk. It felt weird to let the people drive by see me walking. Like they were judging me, but none of them knew I was supposed to be running not walking. So it may have seemed like just walking to someone looking in, but that decision actually meant a lot. It meant being okay of letting go of expectations and simply doing the best I could do. Being comfortable doing what is best for me, even if it may feel like it goes against the status quo.

I’ve ruined somethings I love because I let my expectations and others expectations win. Don’t let those expectations become a road block to your enjoyment. Life’s too short to not find joy in where you spend your time. Instead work on keeping those expectations where they belong, as motivators to do better while doing something you love.

For me, pushing myself physically and working towards goals through running has a fun end result, or at least it should. Don’t get so caught up in high expectations that you lose joy in the things you were originally doing for fun. Allow yourself to simply slow down and walk when you need too. That’s what I am doing as I work on finding joy in running again. It may happen tomorrow. It may takes weeks of half walks/runs. I may enjoy it tomorrow and hate it again next week. Who knows, but I’m still going to give myself the space to find it again.

So remember – always give yourself permission to walk.