"Adversity introduces a man to himself". This
is a quote from Marcus Lattimore, a running back with the San Francisco 49ers
who recently retired from the NFL due to knee problems, without ever playing in
a single game. His is an interesting story, but I'll let you look it up on your
own. The adversity that he is referring to I think was specific to his physical and athletic challenges and own personal athletic aspirations vs an interpersonal type of conflict. Taking
that assumption, his statement is in line with some physically issues of my own that, quite frankly, have been driving me nuts.
A few months ago I strained my Achilles, I worked my way
through it and was able to have a good go at the Reach the Beach Ragnar Relay
in September Reach the Beach Ragnar Relay (http://runningthrutime.blogspot.com/2014/09/reach-beach-ragnar-relay-2014.html). My ankle and Achilles were not perfect, and it hurt, but I figured
out how to do the hills and run a respectable pace without destroying myself in
the process. I love to run, I love the feeling of running, and even though I'll
never win a race, I love to compete. But I won't do it at the expense of
permanently damaging myself. And that is where the adversity comes into play.
I understand what Marcus Lattimore means by what he said.
Granted, this guy is a star athlete. He's got the goods. I'm just an old,
amateur wanna-be runner... But I get it. When something fails to work out as I planned, I get
annoyed and I challenge myself to find a way to fix it. I've stopped being
disappointed by injuries and feeling sorry for myself, and instead focus on
solving the problem and setting a new objective. I'm not settling with the
situation or even close to giving in, but rather I make myself accept the facts
and look for solutions or other ways to satisfy my craving to achieve a specific goal.
Case in point: I had signed up to run a Half Marathon for this past weekend - but
it didn't happen for me. For the last three weeks I've been fighting my
Achilles strain and then I managed to roll my ankle, totally compounding my
problem. I actually thought that I was going to be ok (after rolling my ankle),
but couple of days later it reared its ugly head. I eased my way through my
runs, feeling mildly optimistic that things would work out. But no cigar....
On a beautiful early Sunday morning, two weeks prior to
my HM event, I started a run and didn't get 200 ft. The pain was a hard signal
that I ought not be running. I could walk ok, but running was out of the
question. And yeah... I got mad, was disappointed, and felt sorry for myself... I let those feeling last for the entire 200 foot walk back to my house. Time for a
new plan and solutions. This half marathon wasn't going to happen for me
(although I will admit that up until the night before the event I carried the thought that if my
ankle felt better that I would still try to run it... But better sense prevailed..).
What I read from Marcus Lattimore's quote is that when
things go sideways you discover if, and how, you are able to handle them. You are truly introduced to yourself. How will you handle this situation. The question then becomes: are we
able to, or even willing to, look beyond the problem, the adversary situation. Are we willing to look in, and out of, the box for the
solutions... Sometimes it's all about getting our head in the right frame of
mind. I think that it's ok to feel the emotions of the moment (the
disappointment, anger, etc), but the key is to get over it quickly and move on.
Of course, this particular situation just happened to suck just a little bit more.... I couldn't help but look at the race results yesterday: It turns out that there were only 13 runners in my age group that ran the HM, and given the pace that I've been training at, I had a pretty solid shot of placing in the top 3, if not first in my age group! This kind of set up, an event where there weren't really any seriously faster runners than me in my age group signed up, is a rarity, and it sucks that I could not take advantage of it. <Sigh....> But that's cool - I'm still all in. It just means that I need to put a little more effort into the next one!
