Fighting

I am fighting, struggling, squirming beneath my skin
Trying to move trying to push past the roiling deep within
As I struggle and battle and tear at myself, each step falls heavily down
I'm drowning, no suffocating, no slowly coming 'round.
I'm breathing now and suddenly I am filled with regret and shame
That I fought and struggled and squirmed at all---and then it all starts again.

Today I am fighting a "huge mental battle" as one of my teammates deemed it . It all started with that stupid e-mail...I have been wondering for a while now if I was being a coward for not asking my coach about a scholarship for this semester. I have been doing a decent job and plan on getting faster and peaking when it counts. So the other day, after being persuaded by my dear sweet husband, I did it. I asked him what I could do to get a scholarship. I didn't really expect much to come of it, it wouldn't be the first time I have been rejected you see, and I had kind-of set my sights on not really worrying about it this year. Well at least I thought I was prepared for the answer.

The thing is, the answer was no, which was expected, but the accompanying feelings were not expected. I felt rejected and hurt. I had heard about some other girls on the team getting offers and I started comparing myself to them. I started wondering why no one EVER seemed to think I was worth it in ANYTHING. I was angry and sad and SUUUUUUPER self-esteemy. I let it build up , I let it stew, and then I headed to our second practice of the day...all the while wondering who in their right mind would be putting 5 hours a day into something without any compensation.

Practice didn't go well for me. I pulled out of our last 1200m interval claiming asthma... which seemed legit to those around me given the little high pitch whines coming out of me ( they were really half-veiled sobs). I finished our cool down and headed home, ashamed of quitting, and ashamed that I was letting this bother me, and totally ashamed to tell Justin how practice went. ---Should I have told him? Maybe some battles are meant to be fought alone?---

Then today at 6 AM we had ANOTHER six minute time trial. It hasn't even been 2 weeks since our last one and I was bitter and angry and SO NOT IN THE MOOD.We ran the warm up and I just ran hard, not wanting to think about all the pressure and the anger and the sad and the mad. We started the 6 minute...I pulled out before finishing my second lap. This time it was my "ankle" that hurt ( for those who don't know I really have been suffering from achilles tendonitis, though it wasn't what was bothering me today). What a sissy I am, I just got so frustrated like " What you want me to wake up and get out of my warm bed to come run this stupid thing for you, which won't give an accurate estimate of what shape I am in anyway because our workouts have been brutal this week and I can barely feel my legs, and you want me to do it for FREEEEEEEEEEEEE and you haven't even given me new shoes yet...and the other injured girls get to ride the bike today and the girl that just passed me ,who I could easily crush in this run right now is not running for FREEEEEEEE...what kind of a ninny do you think I am..." and then I started mentally shooting the words "You get what you pay for" at my coach. Then I just stopped. Just quit. Just like that...and I was ashamed again.

Now I have got it all figured out though.I told Justin I need to have a reason for doing this, a cause, some method in the madness. See who in their right mind would spend so much time and energy on something they weren't going to commit to. I do have my reasons, there the same as they were before; I love to run. I want to beat my best time. I want to travel. I want to share this with my husband, but I lost sight of those things for  no good reason. I let it be about what others thought, I valued someone else's validation over my own, and I cheapened two of my work-outs because of it. You get what you pay for, it holds true for your training, for life in general I think. I believe that running is a good investment, that each day of practice and "I-can't-believe-how-hard-this-work-out-is"s will yield more than enough to make it all worth it.

Life's like that I suppose. It takes a whole lot of "eh" days to recognize those extraordinary ones that give us a sense of purpose. If we put in our best efforts how sweet will be the fruit of the harvest. If we are complacent, then what do we live for? It's not much of a payday when you don't put in the hours.So from now on I am not going to let anything stand in my way. I am not going to stand there and let the small things take me down. I am going to keep fighting, with everything I have, knowing that it's worth it, knowing that the fruit will be oh-so-sweet.