Where am I?

Where am I?

I find myself in the midst of an existential crisis.  I don’t know where my fitness is.  I’ve got chronic plantar fasciitis that has me wondering if I should just give up running altogether.  That would be a shame because I love it so.

I was on the treadmill today trying to belt out some 800’s at a pace that would have been my ‘step-back’ pace 5 years ago.  I couldn’t do it.  I was at the track last week trying to knock out some 400’s at a pace that would have been my speed pace 5 years ago.  I couldn’t do it.

Is it just fitness?  Is it strength and mechanics?  Why is my form breaking?  Why can’t I hold these paces?  Why is my heart rate maxed out at half the effort I could do last year?

Am I remembering the effort level incorrectly?  Maybe it was always this hard and I just have rose-colored glasses.  Which, by the way, I need now, because I can’t see anything.

It’s probably a combination of all of these things.  The injuries, the fitness the specificity of speed work that I haven’t done for a year.

I don’t have a solution.  My solution has always been to put my head down, ignore the discomfort and grind it out.  To try harder and eventually all the pieces fall in place.  But now as I’m limping through life I’m wondering if in fact that hand has been played out.

It’s always been a struggle to find the time and to maintain the ambition, but now it just seems a struggle.

The only solution I find is to tactically retreat.  You can’t just stop.  You have to fight for every inch of ground, doggedly dragging the dirt with you all the way to the open maw of the inevitable grave.

Last week I switched those 400’s to 200’s and completed the work out.  Today I dropped my pace by 20 seconds and completed the workout.  I could have walked away.  I didn’t.

I am trying to figure out if those 400’s are gone for good or if that pace is gone forever or it is foothold that needs to be found.  If I’ve learned anything from myself and all the others in the sport you can never count your body out.  It figures stuff out.  It is amazing.

As usual my big brain is getting in my way.  I’m comparing myself to a man who does not exist anymore.  It is unnerving because I’m casting about for the new normal and until I find it there is no base case for comparison.

Part of my problem is that I come at it from the top and adjust my way down.  Whereas a true beginner would come at it from the bottom and ratchet things up.  But, how do I, with my overflowing rack of medals and mind full of stories take on and wear the raiment of a beginner?  How do I acquire the beginner’s mind?

Thanks for letting me talk through this with you.  Now I see what I must do.  I must, as I have always done, treat it as a new, fresh adventure.  I need to cast off expectation but keep my persistence and find a new normal.  I am a student.  My world is out there.  I must find it.

Although I wander, I am not lost.