What I believe....
1st - I believe there are things that happen for a reason. How ever I do not think God ever intended for us to just sit back and watch our lives "happen". I believe that he expects us to do, to try, to attempt, to live. There are times where things happen that are out of our control and I believe that these things that we have no control over are the "things that happen for a reason".
2nd - I believe that Heavenly Father is very patient and really truly wants us to learn, especially the important things. God is the Master, and a Masterful Teacher. I believe that He sees us completely, our strengths, our weaknesses, and most importantly where and when we are ready to grow. And because He sees this He knows just what we need in our lives to make us grow and learn, and therefore we are presented with "tests". The "tests" at the beginning are small and guidance is given, and then once we start to make personal progress we are eventually left to ourselves to see what we will do, to prove to ourselves what we have truly learned. I sincerely believe that God will guide me and hold my hand to help me in times of need and learning, but when I'm ready He lets go, just as a parent does when their babe is learning to walk, and watches to see what I will choose.
This year has been so crazy with my running. Most of you do not know that I have been having great difficulties with my feet. A solution may be coming in the near future, but as of now it sounds like I have joint capsulitis in my toes on both feet. This started a bit last year and this year it reared it's ugly head again. It has been so painful that I have had difficulty in even walking around the house, let alone putting in miles around the track in sprint spikes.
This year started out so rough I though that I might be done running, it was so difficult to train because I would show up to practice not knowing if I would be able to do any running. Taking breaks doing cross training, getting different treatment, seeking help from those around me who's profession it is to treat these kinds of things, but to no avail. The problem remained, and persisted.
I feel I have to add that I may be crazy to train for the 400m Hurdles and even crazier to run the race, but I am not an idiot. I was told by multiple medical professionals that running would not make the problem any worse and I just needed to try and get the inflammation out of my joints as much as possible. So treatment and ice were the magic cure for me.
Fall turned into winter and with it the beginning of Indoor season. I really wanted to work my speed this year so I started racing the 60m and 200m to work on that speed. If you have read some of my first few posts you will already know that I pulled my hamstring in February this year (1st time in my life to ever pull anything, and it was quite serious). It took a good 6-8 weeks of very intense and painful rehab and treatment before I was able to get back into sprinting. But the most important thing was, I made it back and that hamstring is stronger than it was before and I believe that I am stronger now having gone through that experience, which blessing I was promised when Kyle laid his hands on my head to give me a blessing of comfort.
The indoor ended and so began a difficult outdoor season. I had ups and downs but each day was a day of uncertainty...
"Will I be able to run today?"
"Will my foot allow me to do what I must to get into shape?"
"What crazy cross training will we need to do if I can't run on the track today?"
"Will I be able to make it through workouts?"
My times reflected that this year. But I'm lucky to have such a supportive Husband and family. I also am blessed to have an incredible coach, who had to get quite inventive this year with my workouts, training, and cross training.
After arriving in Formia, Italy June 1st I met Antonio an athletic trainer who had an ultrasound machine that was not a heating, but a cooling ultrasound. This little machine (well it was quite large to be honest) took so much of the swelling out of my feet that I was able to run again, with minimal pain.
Though all the ups and downs this season I had some really great personal growth as well. I was able to find what I needed to do to run my best race. In the past I had had mental errors that cost me opportunities to run some good times and to place better in races.
Despite the injuries that I have described a bit above, the fact is I was in shape still to run some fast times physically but mentally I was holding myself back. So the coach and I spoke about believing in myself (I must believe that I can do it). Looking at my practices I had a lot of indications that I was ready to run fast, so I had a belief that I could run fast.
The thing that I struggled with the most was my focus. The funny things about focus is I was focused on my race but I was focusing on the middle of the race when my body was still at the starting line. Which is not good, my focus needs to be where ever my body is at that moment in time.
First meet in Europe this year happened to be in Torino, Italy. This race I had decided I was only going to focus on "the next hurdle", "the next hurdle", all the way until the end of the race, this way I was trying to force my focus onto the present. To my surprise and relief it worked and I had the best race of the year.
This breakthrough made me feel like I had not only turned a page in my book of progress, but I felt like I had gone through a few chapters.
On Aug. 10th I arrived in Moscow, with my first race in the World Championships just 2 days away. I was excited and a bit nervous.
1st - I believe there are things that happen for a reason. How ever I do not think God ever intended for us to just sit back and watch our lives "happen". I believe that he expects us to do, to try, to attempt, to live. There are times where things happen that are out of our control and I believe that these things that we have no control over are the "things that happen for a reason".
2nd - I believe that Heavenly Father is very patient and really truly wants us to learn, especially the important things. God is the Master, and a Masterful Teacher. I believe that He sees us completely, our strengths, our weaknesses, and most importantly where and when we are ready to grow. And because He sees this He knows just what we need in our lives to make us grow and learn, and therefore we are presented with "tests". The "tests" at the beginning are small and guidance is given, and then once we start to make personal progress we are eventually left to ourselves to see what we will do, to prove to ourselves what we have truly learned. I sincerely believe that God will guide me and hold my hand to help me in times of need and learning, but when I'm ready He lets go, just as a parent does when their babe is learning to walk, and watches to see what I will choose.
This year has been so crazy with my running. Most of you do not know that I have been having great difficulties with my feet. A solution may be coming in the near future, but as of now it sounds like I have joint capsulitis in my toes on both feet. This started a bit last year and this year it reared it's ugly head again. It has been so painful that I have had difficulty in even walking around the house, let alone putting in miles around the track in sprint spikes.
This year started out so rough I though that I might be done running, it was so difficult to train because I would show up to practice not knowing if I would be able to do any running. Taking breaks doing cross training, getting different treatment, seeking help from those around me who's profession it is to treat these kinds of things, but to no avail. The problem remained, and persisted.
I feel I have to add that I may be crazy to train for the 400m Hurdles and even crazier to run the race, but I am not an idiot. I was told by multiple medical professionals that running would not make the problem any worse and I just needed to try and get the inflammation out of my joints as much as possible. So treatment and ice were the magic cure for me.
Fall turned into winter and with it the beginning of Indoor season. I really wanted to work my speed this year so I started racing the 60m and 200m to work on that speed. If you have read some of my first few posts you will already know that I pulled my hamstring in February this year (1st time in my life to ever pull anything, and it was quite serious). It took a good 6-8 weeks of very intense and painful rehab and treatment before I was able to get back into sprinting. But the most important thing was, I made it back and that hamstring is stronger than it was before and I believe that I am stronger now having gone through that experience, which blessing I was promised when Kyle laid his hands on my head to give me a blessing of comfort.
The indoor ended and so began a difficult outdoor season. I had ups and downs but each day was a day of uncertainty...
"Will I be able to run today?"
"Will my foot allow me to do what I must to get into shape?"
"What crazy cross training will we need to do if I can't run on the track today?"
"Will I be able to make it through workouts?"
My times reflected that this year. But I'm lucky to have such a supportive Husband and family. I also am blessed to have an incredible coach, who had to get quite inventive this year with my workouts, training, and cross training.
After arriving in Formia, Italy June 1st I met Antonio an athletic trainer who had an ultrasound machine that was not a heating, but a cooling ultrasound. This little machine (well it was quite large to be honest) took so much of the swelling out of my feet that I was able to run again, with minimal pain.
Though all the ups and downs this season I had some really great personal growth as well. I was able to find what I needed to do to run my best race. In the past I had had mental errors that cost me opportunities to run some good times and to place better in races.
Despite the injuries that I have described a bit above, the fact is I was in shape still to run some fast times physically but mentally I was holding myself back. So the coach and I spoke about believing in myself (I must believe that I can do it). Looking at my practices I had a lot of indications that I was ready to run fast, so I had a belief that I could run fast.
The thing that I struggled with the most was my focus. The funny things about focus is I was focused on my race but I was focusing on the middle of the race when my body was still at the starting line. Which is not good, my focus needs to be where ever my body is at that moment in time.
First meet in Europe this year happened to be in Torino, Italy. This race I had decided I was only going to focus on "the next hurdle", "the next hurdle", all the way until the end of the race, this way I was trying to force my focus onto the present. To my surprise and relief it worked and I had the best race of the year.
This breakthrough made me feel like I had not only turned a page in my book of progress, but I felt like I had gone through a few chapters.
On Aug. 10th I arrived in Moscow, with my first race in the World Championships just 2 days away. I was excited and a bit nervous.
Kyle and I in front of the Olympic torch, just outside of the Moscow Olympic Stadium.
Going back to the beginning of this way too long blog entry I spoke about what I believe...
God knows us and knows when and where we are ready to grow and progress and so gives us an opportunity to see what we will do if left to ourselves.
Well apparently after running in the first round of the Moscow World Championships I need to go back and re-read those chapters in my book of progress I thought I had just flown through, and passed with flying colors.
My mind was a little crazy warming up, it went into hyper-mode and I instead of taking my time and focusing on one thing at a time, and staying in the present I started trying to accomplish multiple things at one time. The dreaded sin of multi-tasking.
There are times athletes speak of "being in the zone". And I bet everyone has seen athletes who are "in the zone" - if you have never experienced this the best way to describe it is...
If you can leave reality behind, and your surroundings melt away the more you read and engross yourself into your book, you my friend have "been in the zone". The only way to truly get into the zone is to be focused on the present. You cannot be thinking about how many more pages until the chapter ends, how many more chapters in the book, you must be focused on the sentence you are currently reading. It is the same with sports, you must be focused on the current task at hand. For an athlete to truly be at their best and to be able to walk away and say I did my very best today they have to be in "the zone". I would not say I choked at Worlds, rather I would say that I gagged a bit. I ended up running 56.53 and finished 19th over all.
The good news is that I feel that I have tremendous support behind me, and I feel that I can move forward from this experience keeping my head up and remembering what I have learned here in Moscow so that the next opportunity that presents itself to me I will be ready to jump right in ready to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment