I overcome all fears *part two*

As the title of this post will somewhat indicate, this is the follow up to my previous blog post. A summary, for those of you who missed it. I was about to take part in my first marathon and was bricking it. After much goading myself on I convinced myself that I was ready, had a thorough pre-marathon breakfast, the much needed *pre-race poop*, tied my laces and headed off. 

And here's the awful, painful truth that I almost didn't want to confess. I couldn't finish it. I hit the wall at mile 18 and the next three miles were achingly slow. My legs felt like lead, my insoles had apparently shrunk during Tough Mudder- something I might have realised if I hadn't had to take weeks out of training for illness related reasons- and I could feel a line of bleeding blisters along both sides of my feet. I hit mile 21- 5 miles to go and well over an hour and a half in which to do it in. Easy. 

No. I was broken. I was a shell of my usual jubilant self. The relatively small size of the marathon (under 500 people) and the ridiculously slow pace between mile 18-21 meant that my worst nightmare was realised. I was in last place. The recovery van that went around the course to pick up runners who had damaged themselves was literally on my tail. Every time I looked around they were there. I have described this in a number of ways- the Top Gear failure car for example, or *my personal favourite* the komodo dragon stalking his prey for days after that initial venomous bite. I sobbed and sobbed and hated every moment of them following me. I gave the driver an earful about how awful it was having him there. He looked down at my left ankle (my stupid inherently damaged ankle) and said 'I'm sorry miss, you're doing incredibly but that ankle is just making us all a little nervous especially with the next hill.' Oh god. A hill. JOY OF JOYS. Stubborn as ever I stomped up that hill just to show him. I got to the top, looked at my running watch thinking that I MUST be near that 22 mile mark. 21.2 miles. I called my mum and cried. I told her I was a failure and that this was HANDS DOWN the worst thing I had ever attempted. What was I even thinking?! The pain was overwhelming when I finally let the failure wash over me. I turned to the recovery van, nodded at him and hopped in. I didn't speak again for the 20 minutes it took for me to get back to the race village. I couldn't; it would've destroyed me. I kept getting told how well I'd done, the other runners in the car (they'd all picked up injuries and were en route back with me) commended me for getting past them. One chap was on marathon number 8. He vindicated my feeling that the New Forest Marathon is a lonely marathon. Beautiful scenery but there are so few people that you literally fall into your own little bubble and that's it.

It was not what I'd imagined a marathon to be. I've watched the London Marathon and the Great North Run (I know it's a half- calm down) and said to myself, it'll be that atmosphere that keeps you going when it gets tough. It's the other 40,000 people all achieving something very great who will keep you motivated. It was otherwise a perfect day. Not too hot, not due to rain and the perfect level of cloud cover. I ran through little villages where small children handed out sweaty handfuls of jelly babies (little boy from Brockenhurst- you were my rock!) and I started ludicrously well. The first 10 miles came smoothly and easily and I was at the half way point in just over 2 and a half hours. I could come up with countless reasons WHY I couldn't do it but quite honestly there is no point. And this is actually very important for me. 

My greatest fear has always been failure. I sat in the back of that van and was a failure. And then I started to think. Being a failure would have been never having the bravery to try in the first place. Being a failure would have been continuing on clearly over taxed limbs to the point of real and significant damage. Being a failure would have been not learning something from the experience. And as painful an experience this was, my god did I learn. 

I have learnt that sometimes I need to be nicer to myself. If you had told my younger self that I would be fit enough to run a marathon -ever- she would have laughed and thought something along the lines of 'even the 100m on school sports days hurt'. That sometimes I need to do things for the process rather than some arbitrary final point that I've set myself. I'm actually quite looking forward to just training- for nothing in particular. I learnt that (no pun intended) I can't run before I learn to walk. A marathon WILL happen. I WILL eventually be able to tick that off of my 'to do' list and I will finish a hell of a lot stronger than I could have this time. 

The reason I know this is because I truly can overcome all fears. All it takes is the bravery to try. 

I paint my own reality

The other night I had a bad dream. I wouldn't call it a nightmare, I didn't wake up in cold sweats or screaming or crying or anything like that. I just remember waking up thinking, oh- that was annoying/upsetting. This dream was a weight watchers meeting. My usual leader Sue was there but it wasn't the normal meeting place and I didn't recognise anyone else in the meeting. Very strange as my weight watchers meeting is like a mother's meeting where there is always a hubbub of people comparing weeks, swapping recipes or complaining about the looming Christmastide. I got on the scale and to my horror had gained 12 lbs in a week. Despite my leader affectionately smiling at me and saying we'll get back next week I came out with every excuse in the book. I said it was the wrong 'time of the month', that I had tweaked my gluteus minimus (not even the big one, the teeny one directly in the middle of my right butt cheek) and couldn't do exercise, that I'd been too busy at work to track.

In reality though, the last three weeks I have consistently hit my 'lowest weight ever' and am showing no signs of stopping. Tracking at work has been fine, I take between 15 and 20 thousand steps a day just stomping to and from the stock room at John Lewis, I still go to the gym every week- not as much as before but the fact that I haven't just given up all together with work and study is a good thing- and my positive mental attitude just keeps getting better and better. In fact, I can't help but look at the positives right now. It's coming up to my most favourite time of the year, I got 97% in my first law assignment, I've lost 81.5 lbs and I'm loving my job. So what gives? Why would I be having bad dreams?

Definitely the cause.

I'm not exactly full of answers for that but thinking about it as I sat down to write this blog post, and I'm not sure why I focused on the bad dream other than I wanted to update people in how everything is going, I can't help but think that my subconscious was having an 'alright, feel good now but remember there are MILES to go before you sleep' moment. Which is true. I do still have 101.5 lbs to go until I hit the goal I've chosen for myself. But instead of giving into my subconscious fears- that I haven't been aware of since getting back on track 6 weeks ago- I'm going to try to focus on the good.

Instead of thinking 'I've STILL got over a hundred pounds to lose' I'm going to focus on the fact that in 2 lbs I will be past the 100 mark. Never again will I have a triple digit number to lose and that feels pretty damn good. In 2.5 lbs I will have lost 6 stone. That's like 2/3 or 3/4 of some of my friends' body weight and definitely more than most of my friends' children weigh. I won't have just lost the proverbial baby weight, I'll have lost your average preteen. I'm going to think that with every pound I lose I'm pushing back the clock to a point earlier in my life. So much so that as of right now I can't remember how old I was when I last weighed 17 stone 13.5. But I can guarantee you, I was no older than 16.

I've spent so much time thinking about how much time I've lost by being overweight, things I couldn't do, things I was too afraid to do and with every loss I can feel a little bit of fear and a little bit of resistance to new things melting away with the fat. Ultimately this has reminded me that there will always be things that will try to drag you down, including yourself.  Sometimes I am my own worst enemy and I know that. It's what you do with that information that matters. And I for one am not going to let the little voice in the back of my head that thinks I'm going to fail beat out the little voice in the darkness that says try again tomorrow.

"I don't paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality."
― Frida Kahlo