I choose to battle the pain!

With just 3 days left before the Mardi Gras marathon (half marathon for me), tonight,  I read the perfect piece by Josh Cox.  How timely!  I have to say, most of my friends are NOT hard core trainers or racers.  I have to say, I am, what I personally consider to be, a hard core trainer and racer.  The drive within me to PR, before I run out of time, is awesome!  Oh, how I love it!  While I do not totally understand runners who do not share my passion, I can, on some tiny level relate because from time to time, I will run a race, "just to run it", or what I would call "jog it."   Sorry to offend with the ugly "j" word, but I personally find it to be a useful word.  When I use the word "jog", it means I'm out on an easy run.   I have no goals, I have no pressure, I have no plan, it's just easy running, it's jogging.  In a sense, it can be like "smelling the flowers along the way".   While I do enjoy the occassional "jog", I really don't "get" runners who are not on a mission to improve, with a lot of passion.  Don't get me wrong, that is totally fine with me, that is their choice, I just don't "get it", or understand it.  It's foreign to me.

Below is what Josh Cox recently posted.  He sums it up perfectly for me.    So as many of us go into races over the next few months,
 

I hope WE have the drive to "keep the pedal down" and race to a new running goal.

The Portal of Pain

February 10, 2011

By Josh Cox
Running is a special sport. It’s you against you. It’s about pain, the tolerance of it anyway. Whoever tolerates the most pain for the longest amount of time, wins. There is, of course, that small matter of God given ability but the dynamics of running is the same for all involved: the more you’re willing to suffer, the better the result. We train day in and day out to delay the onset of pain; the fitter you are the faster and longer you can run before pain rears it’s ugly head. In every race and in every training session – when they’re done right, anyway – there comes a point when things get tough, when you have to choose what you want most: slow down and the pain goes away, keep the pedal down and the pain stays… but the hope of faster times and better fitness stays alive. You have to choose to battle the pain.
I’m all for the back of the packers who walk their first 5k or half marathon, it’s great they’re off the couch and pursuing fitness, but those who are content to stay there are missing something… no, everything, everything that I find glorious about this sport, anyway. There are things you can only discover about yourself when you’re pushed to the brink, when you’re on the razor’s edge, pursuing faster times, pushing human limits. It’s not a mile split – the pace is different for everyone, it’s the pace of pain. The pace when the questions mount, when you’re forced to come up with answers.
Francis Bacon once said,

“It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself.”

Pain is the portal to self-discovery… and I’m not just talking about exercise.
I’ve said it a thousand times: if I live a thousand years it will be tough to top my terrible 2005. Bad relationship, bad investment, spiritual oppression, my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer…  I could have been a case study for Murphy’s Law. I was in a valley, it was a year of pain, but I grew more and discovered more about myself during that year than at any other point in my young life.
How does one respond to adversity, times of crisis, or when things don’t go their way? Tough times reveal character, tough times provide answers, it’s where we’re molded and shaped.
A great way to discover yourself is to push your body to it’s limit – run, cycle, climb, lift – drop to the floor and do push-ups to failure, then try to do three more. Self-discovery is painful, but man, is it fun.

Thanks Josh - you summed it up perfectly.

Happy Running, Happy Racing, and Happy Jogging my friends!

 I choose to battle the pain!