I’m worried about the race on Sunday.
I just don’t feel ready. I don’t feel prepared. I feel… nervous? Terrified, even.
I’m sleeping terribly, which is par for the course for me for years now. But I’m waking up feeling restless, achy, even a bit more exhausted than when my head first hit the pillow. I’m struggling to rouse myself and get my shoes on to get out the door.
I’ve *eventually* made it onto the road but it’s a real struggle. And when I am pounding the pavement it’s so far removed from even a bastardization of a gazelle’s grace that one would be hard pressed to described it as anything other than a majestic catastrophe.
But I have gone out.
I have logged a few miles.
And I have returned without falling… albeit I’m running with the over-thinkingly ginger movements of one focused on a coffee cup in hand.
I’ve written about the Coffee Cup Conundrum in the past — the physical/psychological disconnect wherein if one is holding a full cup of coffee and does NOT think about it, one could do a pasa doble and not spill a drop. But the moment one *thinks* about holding that cup, the moment one frets about having a full cup and focuses on NOT spilling, well, one can be assured that there will be a splash of coffee down the front side before too long.
And so instead of running just to run, I’m running constantly thinking, “don’t fall… don’t fall.” And by overthinking that, I’m a thousand times MORE likely to fall because my brain is do caught up in the IDEA of falling, even in trying to prevent it, that psychologically I’m conditioned to be falling. And I can’t stop thinking about falling… which makes me more nervous and more apt to tumble and… oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to stumble and plummet.
Whilst running this morning along the Ala Wai Canal, I was struck by this sign… I’m in a crabby mood and while the artwork is cued to warn against fishing, I took it to me “no crabs or grouches allowed.”
It was a difficult 10K this morning and I’m worried about Sunday. Very, very worried. And I find myself int he quicksand of doubt and worry that morphs into a self-fulfilling prophesy of hardship and failure. This is not good. Not good at all.
***
And so to help stave off the anxiety, to push down the whispers of doubt and fear, I once again sought the answers in the bottom of a clear plastic cup. Rum and pineapple and the open water off the coast of Waikiki. The catamaran ride part deux, once again with skipper Jerry and this time a two-man crew of Skyler and James. The winds were nonexistent, the seas dead calm, and Mom and I knocking back a few cocktails to enjoy the sunny skies.
Tomorrow we do our Merrie Mile. And then Sunday it’s the 26.2 miles of the Honolulu Marathon. What does the clock foretell? How will the days go past? I’m not sure… but a few adult beverages and at the moment I hardly care.
Maybe given my mood and mindset this is the best way to prep for the race ahead.