Monday, March 25, 2013

Days 31 thru 34 - 3/20-3/24

Quite by accident I failed at my Lenten experiment (in a way). I sat down at a bar to wait for a friend on Thursday night and without even thinking about it, ordered an Abita Light. I was into my first sip before I realized I was screwing up Lent. I felt bad at first...and then I didn't.

As I've professed, the reason I give myself these challenges is not religious in nature, so it wasn't like I betrayed my faith. I do this each season to inspire myself to blog(write) about my experiences. As I continued to sip the Abita, I thought about this. Although I feel like I started off very targeted, as the years have gone by the exercise has just become an excuse to put how I feel into words. I need pushes in my life, and this was the push I required to be creative by giving myself a responsibility to process my reactions to what I gave up. I've drifted though, and my blog entries are more generally about whatever I'm going through, regardless of the impact of what I sacrificed for Lent.

So I lost my focus, but gained my voice.

By acknowledging that, it's been easier to come back to the computer to write. I don't have to recycle my impressions or dig deep for implications. Life is easy enough to tell like it is a series of stories without having to set up a reason to tell them.

Now that that's out there...let me tell you about the fucking 1/2 marathon I ran yesterday. (I'm giving up the asterisk game too, curse words are much more powerful when spelled out in all their fucking glory).

On January 1st I made a resolution to myself to start yogging regularly, and I kept up pretty good with it by doing around 10 miles a week. One of my friends who is a running enthusiast took notice of my new hobby and suggested I sign up for a 1/2 marathon with her to inspire myself further. This seemed like a good idea at the time. So I said sure, and in mid-February upped my training by stretching the distances I was yogging. Last week I got a sinus/throat infection and my allergies kicked into crazy high gear, but I took a few days off then kept going because I figured I could muscle through it. You know, with my big bulging yogger's muscles. (I still have a super sexy cough btw - the kind where people give up their seat next to you on the train, it's that super sexy.)

The morning of the 1/2 marathon we got on a train bound for the course location: Sleepy Hollow, NY. I was nervous, not only because I'm scared of the headless horseman, but also because I've never done any kind of run with a large group. When I set goals I apparently decide I should achieve them (even when I'm still wrestling with phlegm and anxiety) though, so we arrived, then pinned on our numbers and headed to the starting line.

I am somewhat socially awkward in any new situation. Once I am comfortable with a person/group/setting, I'm stupidly charming and funny, but initial encounters with anything new or different make me self-conscious and uneasy. And that's ok, it's just how I am. Part of the reason is that I worry constantly if people like and respect me. This is probably because I'm not always sure if I like and respect me. When the people I'm around accept me though, I can go easier on myself since that's what the herd is doing. This isn't a perfect way to exist and I'm working on being more confident but not an asshole that doesn't care about the impact I have on others. Balance is a bitch though. I also worry when I don't know what to expect and how I will react to any unknown factors. This can be social and also topographical, because I'm partially blind in one of my eyes. Depth perception and objects on my right can also be a bitch.

We start and I'm already tweaking out because there are so many people (884 participants according to their website). I'm used to yogging in my park, where I know where all the turns and inclines are and am familiar with path etiquette. Everyone was nice, but I hated it.

There was mud, steep inclines, water stations where people threw their cups down on the ground when they were done which is apparently what you do but made me upset about littering, narrow paths, uneven bricks, tight corners, extreme downhill grades that made my toes squish painfully in my sneakers, mile markers that didn't match up with the notifications on my MapMyRun app, double-backs that made me realize how many people were kicking my ass, wind, rude signs supposedly designed to encourage me (example: "If you're reading this, you're running too slow!"), highways only partially shut down so cars were in the next lane, and did I mention all the people? I could elaborate exponentially on each of these things (gift? curse? undecided.) but you get the idea. There were also some very nice views of the Hudson and a neat graveyard along the way. After I crossed the finish line my nerves were shot and I just wanted to go crawl into a hot indefinitely long shower. Alone.

I calmed down after a few minutes of rest and little paper cups of water. After I hobbled home I had a neti-pot, Mountain Dew and 1/2 pizza marathon (winner!), then passed out on the couch while watching Frankenweenie. Oh, as far as not watching TV and movies...I fucked that up too. I was depressed last week and noticed that season 3 of Archer is on Netflix streaming now (end of explanation).

Like anything you wonder if you can do until you actually do it, I'm ultimately glad I finished the 1/2 marathon. I don't think I will ever yog in a group setting again though because it was just too stressful for me. And as I said before, that's ok, it's just how I am. I have other strengths (pizza eating, beer drinking, over thinking things) and plenty of other stuff to be anxious about (finding a job, telling a guy dating that I'm just not that into him, catching mice) so I'll leave the fucking marathons, 1/2 or otherwise, to those who are more like those shitty hills I wheezed up -- inclined.

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