Put the Healing Before the Horse

Sometimes when you run a half marathon and your quads are shredded afterward, you feel good about it.  And sometimes you don't.
If you've prepared well, i.e. worked hard to listen to your body, pushed just enough, recovered productively, and laid out a mental plan, you've had a race of which to be proud.  In this case you relish having to hold on to the sink while lowering your tender glutes to the toilet.
Flip that coin over (your race did NOT leave you in a good mental or emotional place for various reasons), and you are cursing at the effort getting out of your car and crying at the sight of your foam roller.  You feel like shit and are annoyed with yourself, your exploded muscles, and gravity in general.
The mindset you take in your recovery is the lace that ties your good and bad racing experiences together; the way to approach healing your body is the same whether you've achieved a personal best time or walked through a windstorm when you'd intended to fly to the finish line.
Begin by honoring your body's need to heal and the time it requires to do so.  This includes letting your current level of fitness be and minding what hurts, when it pains you, and for how long.  Then you can determine when and how to be active:  maybe yoga, maybe a run, perhaps a nap.  To rebuild your workout schedule too quickly will only extend the healing time; train when your body feels good again, not just good enough.  You wouldn't accept an effort that's "good enough" in a race - don't allow that standard to govern your recovery, either.  If you don't have faith that you will heal, how can you ask your body to break down and rebuild as you gain fitness?
We are always in a state of healing, be it potential or active.  The human body continuously allows cells to die regenerates them, thus giving us the potential to recover from whatever might befall us.  In this state of potential healing, we can improve fitness, but only to the point which we believe (consciously and subconsciously) that we can rebuild our tissue and recover from training.  When we race or overdo it in a workout or a training program, we come into a state of active healing in which we can, at best, retain our current level of fitness, and at worst have to avoid our sport or activity of choice altogether.
Take each workout as  a real-time fitness yardstick:  What can I do today for my body?  Will my workout help me to heal or to improve my fitness?   Be mindful of whether your body desires a push to reap athletic benefits or simply to focus on regeneration to prepare for future workouts (which may in crude more healing and repairing until you are fully recovered).  Then, tear up the roads and the quads knowing you can trust yourself to bounce back.

Spreading the Word

Thank you to CrossFit Nickel City for hosting my Athletics and Energy Healing workshop.  To interact with talented coaches and fellow athletes while exploring pain in the mental/emotional dimension was a pleasure.

Pain and Energy Healing Interactive Workshop

Join me at CrossFit Nickel City (Virginia and Tenth Streets, Buffalo) for an interactive discussion on the messages our bodies send us in the form of pain.  We will explore sources of pain, check out our own energy fields, and peek at the spiral path of healing.  We will get to know our bodies, minds, and pain better so that we can interpret injury and affliction with the aim of using what we learn to eliminate pain, improve athletic performance, and prevent future discomfort.

12:00-1:00 Free and Open to the Public
RSVP - wellvibrations@gmail.com

A Great Cry

Sometimes I cry.  For me, tears are part release and part self-expression.  I do a lot of "Oh, that's sooooo sad" crying (what with the jets continually crashing and children continuously starving), and I also have spells of "Oh, that's soooo great" tears streaming down my face.  Which is why I just didn't sign up to run the Buffalo Marathon.  While I watched the promotional video on the marathon's website, sitting in my healthy, well-trained body, my mind confident from the successful 20-mile run I had yesterday, my heart began overflowing with emotion:  Love for my city, appreciation for being a runner, and a wealth of gratitude that came pouring out of my eyes and dripping onto my keyboard.  How incredibly lucky am I to live in a beautiful city filled with a familyhood of runners, and I get to run 26.2 miles through it, with them - shit, more tears.  If you're not a runner, check out the video and allow yourself to be inspired; if you do run, I dare you NOT to sign up for some part of marathon weekend's events.
I am ending this post abruptly so that I can sign myself up for real.

My Marathon

I am wife.
I am mommy.
I am marathon training.
I am selfish.
I am strong.
I am weak.
I am proud.
I am humble.
I am high.
I am low.

I am on a roller coaster, emotions magnified by miles. I give to myself on the road. I give hope and strength and endorphins and a muffin when I'm finished.
But I still need to take, to receive from others.  I need life to allow me to rest, to sit by myself, to snack when I need to snack.  I need a couple of quiet minutes to take a shit.  I need to feel supported.

And so, I

Cultivate patience
Radiate forgiveness
Cook for my family
Read to my children
Fix the throw pillows
Clean the toilet
Get up at 4:30 am, run, and do it all again.

I can only receive what I can give.  I only take what I release, only grow what I sow.

What is your marathon?