Month: January 2017

Family, Life, Run

My sins this week: Envy, Fear, Jealousy, Gluttony and Pride

I’m sure everyone has heard of the seven deadly sins.  Well, this week there were five for me: Envy, Fear, Jealousy, Gluttony and Pride.  I’d be being a bit dramatic to say they were deadly, though some felt that way at times.  If you are at all impressed by the numbers in the photo above, so am I.  No, I’m not tooting my own horn, those aren’t my numbers.  To get the full story, we have to go back a bit.  Not too far, just a few weeks ago.

Darin asked if I heard about the Vista View 360 Ultra Marathon.  My response was something like “yeah, I got that email, why?”    He told me he was thinking about signing up for it.  I probably looked at him like he had three heads because I wear my reactions right on my face.  He chuckled and I told him I didn’t pay much attention to the details.  He filled me in.  You can either do a relay with three other people, or just run as many laps you can as a single runner within the six hours allotted.  Wow.  Six hours, ok.  I was a bit taken back, but he is so supportive of me and never blinks twice when I blurt out that I am doing race, how could I not support him?  Ok, go for it.  Sign up!  I say.  I reminded him a couple times and he went on my training runs with me but still was undecided.  Then one day, he just signed up.

Guess we will start with Envy.  I was totally envious of his willingness to jump in and sign up.  I immediately wanted to sign up too.  I am the runner in the family after all, right?  No, this was his thing.  I don’t want to sign up and then make it about me, I have enough races.  He was so excited.  We talked about how he would fuel, what he would bring and wear and about how many miles he might do.  His longest training run was ten miles at this time.  Ten.  He talked about how cool it would be to hit a half marathon.  Then, after a few training runs and seeing his time, he talked about how cool it would be if he got close to a full marathon distance.  Or even maybe a 50k!  I envy how he can think positive “what if’s.”  All my what if scenarios usually involve my death by drowning or bike crash.

Saturday we decided to go for a bike ride.  Darin asked where I wanted to ride to and I suggested the greenway.  Greenway = safer than the streets and no major turns (sad, I know).  He tells me that the greenway on the other side of Oakland had just  been repaved and now goes through to Welleby park.    While I was referring to the safe greenway that required no major intersections, he was being adventurous, as usual.  I agreed and we headed off.  Adventure is good.  As per usual for me, fear sets in while I ride.  I’m not sure exactly what my fear is.  Eating it in the street is probably the top one.  See, I don’t have the best balance and I have not been out riding much.  Most of my work has been on the trainer building fitness more than function.  At least I tell myself that.  I thought I was safe when we got into Welleby but I was wrong.  The path was full of little tight turns, hills and narrow spots to make a chicken like me cringe.  My new cleats were not helping the matter and I had a few close calls with not being able to clip in or out in time.  The whole time he kept encouraging me.  I explained to him that I didn’t think he could relate to how hard it is to do something while the whole time you are afraid.  He doesn’t know what that’s like, he has no fear when it comes to that kind of thing.

Our next stop is jealousy.  I’m totally jealous of him!  He is good at everything, without trying mind you.  I train six days a week.  He trains six days total before running a near marathon!  I am exaggerating a little in the fact that he may have trained more than six days, but not by much.  He has the balance of a trapeze artist on the bike, and just jumps into any challenge without flinching.  He literally has no fear.  I was totally jealous that of the two of us, he would run more than a half marathon first and  I was totally jealous that he was participating in this race and I wasn’t.  I’m jealous that he can think and speak positively of himself without looking like a smug jerk and I am jealous that he’s made of magic.

Needless to say, he did an amazing job.  I’ll get to pride in a moment but first, let’s fast forward to gluttony.  After a big race, I always treat myself to a little naughty food.  For me, I crave eggs, bacon, hash browns and a big ol’ stack of pancakes.  Then again, my races usually end sometime in the morning.  After we were home and showered, I asked what he wanted for lunch.  He chose Ale House, for a zinger mountain melt.  Rightfully so, he just ran a near freaking marathon.  In case you don’t know what a zinger mountain melt is, picture a big plate covered in french fries.  Now cover those fries in cheese and bacon crumbles.  Now cover that in like five chicken tenders covered in hot sauce.  Put a side of blue cheese dressing on the plate and you have a zinger mountain melt.  It’s what dreams and diabetes are made of.  Yeah, I had one too.   Nice to meet you, gluttony.

While I may envy him and be jealous of him, I am so proud of him.  Today, he ran for six hours, he covered more than twenty five miles.  I would not have been nearly as successful.  That course was hard, probably the hardest I have seen in local races.  I am usually thankful for Florida’s flat terrain, but not at Vista View.  This was a trail run through mulch and gravel and chunked up grass.  This was no flat, out and back.  This was the same scenery lap after one and a quarter mile lap.  This was a hell of a run.  He was in pain and he was tired, but he never really complained.  He was exhausted and I am sure wanted to quit on more than one occasion but he didn’t.   He could have easily been grumpy, like I have been sometimes, but he wasn’t.  He smiled at us, and thanked us for being there for him lap after lap.  He was and is amazing and I could not be more proud of him.

Some of these “sins” of mine, I plan to avoid in the future.  That mountain melt is not something I ever hope to eat again.  There will be envy, there will be jealousy and unfortunately there will be fear.  I will work to accept the fear, maybe one day conquer it.  I am grateful for the opportunity to pay him back for the support he so readily gives me and the pride I felt when he crossed that finish line is something I welcome again and again.

Life

What do you want?

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want lately.  I’m not referring to tech or training gadgets (though I do have a list of those that I want).  I’m referring to my day-to-day.  For so many years, I just wanted a job that I did not dread going to.  I didn’t want to physically feel sick to my stomach on those days that I knew were going to be rough.  I have that now, which I am grateful for, but still wonder sometimes what I would do if I could choose anything.  I often wonder what it is like to love what you do.  Don’t get me wrong, my job is fine but it’s not something I love to do.  I don’t get excited to go to work each morning.  I don’t look forward to Mondays, ever.  I know a few people who love what they do.  My sister is a massage therapist and loves what she does.  She enjoys it enough that she’s willing to do it for friends and family on her days off.  I cannot imagine even remotely wanting to do my job on my day off.

I thought about going back to school and maybe getting my degree, but I found a few flaws in that plan.  First and foremost, I have no idea what I would even want to go to school for!  Secondly, it’s expensive and will take quite some time to finish.  Quite frankly, I am too old for that crap and I have too many responsibilities that I need a paycheck for right now.  Even if I pursue something attainable in this lifetime, I’ll be what, 45 when I just start my new career?  More than likely that new position, even if I love it, won’t pay what I make today…. Oh, and did I mention I have no idea what that career would be?

I tried to go a different route with my thoughts.  Let’s play the imaginary lottery win game.  What would I do then?  What do I love enough that if money didn’t matter, I would want to get up every day and do?  Well, there are a few contenders there.  I have and will always love photography.  I would immediately open a portrait studio.  They don’t make much these days as everyone has amazing camera technology.  Photographers are everywhere, some good, others not, but everywhere.  I love training and helping people train.  I’d become a personal trainer, or life coach.  I could see loving doing that every day.  I’d also write more.  I’d work on that book I started so very long ago.  Alas, I have not won the lottery.  Maybe I should be a party planner, because I certainly had the most amazing pity party for myself once I came to the realization that none of the things I love would ever be able to compensate me enough, not without putting my family at risk and that is something I just cannot do.

Darin noticed I was a little down and asked what was up.  I told him how I envied that he loved what he did, that he looked forward to new clients and jobs.  That he had enough confidence in himself to sell his services and how his love for what he does shows in every project.  I am sure I mentioned before that he is made of amazing.  He asked me a very insightful question….  Why can’t you do any of those things on the side to start?  My immediate answer was that I didn’t want to take time away from them for another extracurricular activity.  I already train several hours a week.  How can I justify taking chunks out of our evenings or weekends?  He said that if it made me happy, he thought that I would eventually find that if I put my mind to it, I could maybe end up making a career out of it.  I don’t know if I believe that, but that’s probably because I don’t believe in myself enough.  It’s something I know and try to work on.

Thanks to the fact that my old job paid ridiculous money and I turned to retail for therapy, I actually have all the photography equipment I could ever need to set up some shoots.  I just need to start taking my camera with me again.  I used to take tons of photos and one day, just stopped.  I don’t know why.  Before the holidays, I took the camera out again and started reminding myself of how to shoot.  It’s been fun trying to remember what settings I need in a given situation.  It’s not like riding a bike, at least for me.  It takes some time getting back into it.  My training will continue, of course, and as far as helping people I am going to work on that as well.  Once this March triathlon is over, I am going to work my schedule out to allow for more of that.  Darin also convinced me to take the plunge and pay for a class to become a certified personal trainer.  That took a lot of convincing.  I am scared to fail, or maybe even worse, to get certified and still be the type of person who cannot “sell themselves.”  Then what?  Well, he told me that if that happens, then the worst case is I gained a lot of knowledge to use for myself and family and friends.  He also reminded me how much I love to learn.  That was enough to convince me.

So, for the next several months, I will be a tri-training, student of personal training, photography geek.  I read some meme or something that said “make a list of the things you love and make a list of what you do each day, compare and adjust accordingly.”  It may not help me quit my day job, but they are certainly things I can look forward to each day.  Who knows, maybe even at my age something will come out of it.  If not, maybe I will get to experience loving what I do, even if its only part-time and for free!