Nerves

WARNING: Long rant of pre-race nerves follows, this is your last chance to turn back!

Today is the day of my very first race, ever! And I am TERRIFIED! I wonder why I thought it was a good idea to sign up for in the first place?

I've been driving myself crazy worrying about this race for the past week. What if I get lost and run the wrong way? I'm quite sure that can happen as I'll probably be the very last one in the whole race. What if I find out running on asphalt is A LOT harder than running on a treadmill? Why didn't it occur to me to try running on asphalt at least ONCE before the race? What if I trip and fall and embarrass myself? Or finish way behind everyone else and embarrass myself that way? The list of bad things that could happen just goes on and on.

Then, today, I looked at some pictures from earlier races, and a whole new set of worries surfaced. There were so many people! I hadn't thought about all the people who would see me run and finish way later than everyone else. All the ones who would no doubt think me stupid to have signed up for a race when I clearly can't run. And there are cobbled stones! I never even considered that, and I'm scared my frail ankles will be hurt.

Tonight I had a nightmare where I started the race and ran for a while, only to find out that I had forgotten the timer chip (is that what it is called?), and I had to find someone in charge and convince him to give me another. Of course, by the time I got back to the start line to start over again, everyone else had left.

So, as you can probably tell, I'm just a wee bit scared!

I know that someday, I'll probably laugh thinking about how scared I am now. But I'm not laughing now... And I am sure it will feel wonderful to cross that finish line having faced my fears. But right now I don't feel like facing anything.

To be honest, all I want to do is curl up in my bed and forget I ever signed up for this. The only thing keeping me from doing that, is that I know I will feel more like a failure if I don't even give it a go. I don't want to disappoint myself like that. The regret of not daring lingers a lot longer than feeling like a loser for finishing last does. Quitting would feed my inner critic, and I'm trying to silence her once and for all. So I am going to do this, no matter how scared I am, and no matter how much I don't want to right now.

Enough ranting, now I'm going to let go of my fears and focus on my goals. I am going to sit down and envision crossing the finish line with a new personal record. I can do this, and that's what I'll keep my focus on from here on out. Wish me luck!

Planning to fail?

Lately, I have started noticing how my mind is constantly trying to avoid failure, rather than working towards success. It became very evident when I first decided to do a 1 week 1 kg challenge. As I started to write the blog post announcing my challenge, I almost scared myself into quitting before I'd even begun. Thoughts like "what if I can't make it", "I will be publicly humiliated", "I'm not good enough" and "Now everyone will see what a failure you really are" raced through my mind. 

I noticed these fears, and decided to not let them stop me. But I also wondered how many times these fears have stopped me from doing something that I want to do. I am not always as aware of them, or if I am, I believe them and give up before I've even started. Frankly, I'm a little scared to think of all the things I've missed just because of my gut reaction of "you're not good enough".

I recently read You CAN be thin by Marissa Peer, and she talks (among other things) about this. Her advice is to tell yourself that you are enough, and repeat it until you believe it. I've started doing that, and I've also started being my own cheerleader instead of my own worst enemy. Well, I'm trying to anyways, my inner critic has been a part of me for years, so the habit takes a while to break. But at least I'm trying. :)

Of course, when I first started c25k, I was attacked by the self doubt monster. When I looked at the schedule ahead of me, I quickly decided that this was way too hard for me, impossible even. Yet, others who hated running had managed to come out alive and with a new-found passion for running, so I gave it a shot after all.

The first few weeks were okay, but as soon as the running time doubled from 1,5 minutes to 3 minutes, my doubts resurfaced. You may remember that I very nearly convinced myself I'd reached my limit. Luckily, I refused to give in, and managed it just fine. There and then I decided to stop believing that the next run would be too hard, and think positive instead.

For a long time, I actually managed to do so. I cheered myself on. At one point I even started feeling like I looked forward to a new challenge. Things were looking good. Then the dreaded week 5 of the c25k happened. From the very beginning I'd feared this week. Somehow I had managed to push it from my mind, thinking it was way in the future. Then, all of the sudden it was there, and there was no way I could quell my self doubts this time. Really, whomever thought that it was a good idea to go from running 8 minutes straight to 20 - TWENTY - minutes straight? They should be locked up, crazy people!

I was quite sure I'd never make it, my fear of failure was warning me against trying - no good could come out of this. Well, I'm very stubborn, and I hadn't come all this way just to quit. So I set out to prove myself wrong. I kept Jillian in my mind, and I envisioned the triumph of being able to blog about it afterwards. And I DID IT! Not only did I run 20 minutes straight, I went on to run really fast (for me - remember my definition of running at this point is 6 km an hour - babies could probably crawl faster) for a while afterwards, just to quiet my doubts once and for all. Take THAT, evil self doubt! Totally knocked-out there, inner critic!

Image by digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So now I'm more determined than ever to not let my fears stop me. I will not be planning to fail anymore, I am going to plan success instead. :)