Goals

Almost every runner I know, serious or casual, makes goals. Run a 10K at the end of the month. Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 2012. Hit 70mpw. Run a season injury free. Stick to a consistent core strengthening program. We've all set running goals. But what happens when we fail to reach those goals? What happens inside each of us when we have to let a goal go due to inadequate training, or injury, or just because we set something that was too high for us to reach.

I know for me personally, I go through several emotional stages which always bring me back to one thing: I cannot always be in control.

When I somehow mysteriously ended up with a bruise on my knee and pain when running, my first reaction was: I can control this. And by taking control of the situation, I only made things worse. The bruise became swelling and the swelling became very painful. I briefly gave up control of my daily running, to control the injury, and ended up losing control of both.

So after losing control, I lost it mentally. It was an all-day Anna pity party that I put my boyfriend and family through. I no longer knew how to take control of the situation other than work on core/hip/glut strength and continue to talk to PT's, massage therapists, and my doctor. Everyone was giving me different reasons to what happened and how to fix it. Each time, it only got worse. The people closest to me were telling me something completely different: leave it be and lift it up to God. The problem with this solution for me was that I was not in control of it. "Time" meant fitness lost, goals dissipating, and no timeline to when I could be running again. I was not going to sit and wait.

My knee didn't really give me an option over the weekend. It stayed swollen for 6 days and showed no signs of letting up. Walking was very painful and I played around with ways to keep the swelling held up tightly above my knee so it could not roll down across my knee cap. I'm sure this was not helping my progress at all. Finally, I succumbed to the reality of the situation and spent 3 days on the coach with my leg propped up on a pillow, alternating ice and an ace bandage wrap. Finally on Monday the swelling had gone down a little and I could walk farther than 5 feet without limping. I felt like I was back in control of the situation. I could make it to the starting line of the Eugene Women's Half Marathon if this type of progressed continued and then onto my goal of running the Autumn Leaves 50K at the end of October.

Nope. As I weened myself off of Advil, I was in terrible pain. The swelling was still down, but my knee kept catching, stopping me in my tracks and bringing tears to my eyes. How, after 1 week since my last run, all the Advil, compression, ice, rest, massage, and core/hip strengthening, could I be in this much pain? The next day I called Slocum and scheduled an appointment with Dr. Stan James asap. I won't be able to get in until next Thursday.

So, as I do in many situations I am not in control of, I write. I write for myself and I write for others, about the lessons of running I have learned up through this far. I have realized I have made running my life. I was never a runner in my youth. My mom spoke to my high school cross-country coach yesterday at school as he was making copies of the Poynette top times and places ever at the Cambridge Cross-Country Meet (1st one of the season). Both my and my sister's names were on the list, and my mom asked him, "Knowing now that both my girls have run marathons and have turned into the runner's that they are today, would you have ever guess that of them from their first cross-country meet at Cambridge?" My coach said, "Of Christy, yes. Of Anna, no, not at all." Perhaps this was because I announced at the finish line of the Cambridge Meet as a freshman, "That was Hell and I'm never doing that again!". Oh- how far I've come. Running is now the center of my life, as a coach, as a writer, as a friend, as an employee. I eat, breath, drink running every day. I have no choice but on a bad running day, to go out and face other runners and talk about running all day long. My passion is also my curse, because at times it has become more important to me than family and friends, and this I truly regret.

So, instead of focusing on the goals I cannot achieve through running this week (or next week, or next month, or whenever I am able to run again), I have chosen to make a new list of goals:

1. Go back to the basics- and run for fun! Because I love to run!
2. Remember God gave me the gift to run and not to take that gift for granted.
3. Not get hung up on a running goals and make them the focus of my life
4. Spend more time outside of running environments with friends and family.
5. Find a new hobby that is not running related in anyway.
6. Trust my instinct first, not others opinions when it comes to my personal running and injuries. I know my body best.
7. Give up control.

I want to look at these goals everyday and make sure I can check each one off, before I step to the starting line of my next race. I feel that if I make them a priority over my own running ambitions, I'll reach more goals than I ever dreamed possible.