Failure and light

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." - Robert F. Kennedy

During the holidays, things started to slide for me. Since then, I've been fighting a pretty deep depression. I've been going through the motions, while longing to sleep most of the day, eat everything in sight to try and make me feel better, and barely stay afloat. I just haven't cared much.

Some of this may be news to you. Life has been off the rails for me since the beginning of 2014.

I've had a hard time getting any traction with my running. That led to me doing a half marathon this past Sunday only having run 25 miles since January 1. In case you were thinking about doing a half marathon without training, I'd highly suggest you don't.

Anyway, earlier in the week, I was cursing this decision to do a race in early March. I was cursing my friend Dave, whose idea it was (after we finish the GR Half back in October). I had lead time, I could have trained. I planned on training, but life and the dark cloud had hit me harder than I have experienced in awhile.

I was cursing on Saturday night. I was cursing on Sunday morning when my alarm went off (let's be honest, this is a daily occurrence). Leading up to this race, I was concerned about finishing before they closed the course. I was concerned about not finishing. But somehow, I still got up and went (paying for it already probably helped). I told myself it didn't matter when I finished, but I'd still get bling.

I walked a lot. It was slow. I used my YakTrax for the first time, and got huge blisters on my feet. At mile 6, I nearly fell (did the splits instead) and kept going. At mile 11, I really started to feel my body screaming at me. I was walking almost the entire time by that point. I couldn't get a good running rhythm the entire race. I thought about quitting multiple times. There was a good chance I was not going to finish this race.

Just after mile 12, there was a cheer station that was packing up when I got there (told you I was slow). But they were there, cheering just as they had been the first time I went by (around mile 8?). And there was one gentleman who saw I was struggling, put his hand out and gave me a high five. He told me that you could smell the finish line from here. And that kept me going at that point, despite the sniveling I was doing because someone cared enough to tell me I was almost there.

From there on, there was a city worker in a truck that gave me a thumbs up. I watched as people that had finished long before me were walking to their cars to go home. I reached the entrance to the school parking lot (where the finish line). I hit the 13 mile marker, could see the finish line and started to run (if you call it that...it was still pretty slow). I ran that last .1 mile in to the finish line.

There were a few people there to cheer me in, but most had already gone inside because it was so cold. But I kept walking to get my medal. Then into the school to warm up. As horrible as I felt, I had my bling.

I've been limping around since then. And while I may not have achieved greatly in the grand scheme of things, I put it out on the line to possibly fail horribly by not finishing this race.

This race was something I needed. I needed it to help me crawl out of the depression that's been keeping me down. It showed me a light I haven't been able to see in awhile. I hope there's more light. In fact, I need more light.