challenges

My weekend was fairly busy and fairly not busy. Clint and I have found ourselves rather enraptured with our new workout program (CrossFit) and although I am enjoying it and I love that I have a new workout everyday in accordance with the website, it is hard for me to fathom the workouts will be enough to prep me for a marathon or that I will ever be able to do any of these exercises without first scaling them down. I imagine it will take years and I hope this is something Clint and I stick with.

As for the marathon... there is something my friends and loved ones have a hard time understanding. When I am faced with a possible challenge, my expectations of myself are to overcome them. Not just overcome them but be great. Unfortunately, this creates a lot of pressure on myself. In my mind, doing something without doing it well is failing. And I would rather not try than fail. To say, attempt the marathon and then not finish or have to walk a great deal would be a failure to me in my mind. So accepting the challenge of the marathon is not just saying "I'll try", it's saying "I will RUN it all." It has been difficult for me to fully accept this challenge. The idea of running 5+ hours (I'm an idealist but I'm not out of touch with reality--I don't expect myself to finish in under 5 hours) is daunting and even a bit boring. But so long as my feet don't stop moving and don't slow to a walk or trot, I'll be satisfied. If I can RUN it... if my body can reach a fuller potential and allow my lil legs to hit that finish line in under 5 or 4.5 hours... I'll be happy. (If, by the grace of Buddha and the CrossFit creators I can finish in 4 hours or less, I'll be ecstatic....)

These "expctations" of myself create a hindrance in my life of what I am willing to try and how I approach challenges in my life. Perhaps, accepting that I will not always do things well doesn't necessarily mean the attempt was a failure, will help me better embrace challenges in the future.