I feel like someone beat me to a pulp. I ran my heart out today & yet I feel defeated, lost, bruised, and demoralized with the outcome of this Trail/Cross Country race.
This was the toughest race I’ve had till now. I’ve run better times on the track which made me believe I could throw down a decent race on 770+ feet of mountain elevation. I hoped to aim a time of 9 min/mile pace to complete the loop in a 54/55 minute flat.
Maybe I am being way too hard on myself to endure that level of pain from running on stones, mud pits, and crossing rivers and shouldn’t expect more than an average endurance runner. The hard part of this life is everything I do, isn’t for me, it’s for others. Live for others and you might just end up finding your own peace.
This course felt like driving on the Monaco Grand Prix. There is very little place to overtake & I ended up passing most people on a straight stretch where I was basically sprinting on rocks and soft mud at 7:45 min/mile, again – this is mountain/cross country running. I really hoped I could do better than this. I set a high bar & I bombed miserably.
Something was on my mind while I was running the race. Barely a friend – someone I care a lot about & I can only hope things get better with time. I would also say, I managed to push myself across the finish line because of this person. It’s funny that mental health, stress & depression are taken as a joke even in the 21st century as everything around us is made to cause more of it. I did receive a text the earlier morning that was not at all fun to read and most guys would have just stayed in bed or drank themselves back to sleep. Sadly, I’ve never been a fan of either and I ended up catching the train from grand central. Every word of that text hurt, every sentence felt made my heart sink, and by the end of that message, I felt like I had committed a crime. And now that I think, I ran managed to throw down a decent race for my own sake.
I still like to recap my darkest moments which made me rigid today.
- Losing my grandparents, dog & bio father all in 2.5 years.
- Covid kicked the shit out of me, losing weight, everything going for a toss all in a matter of 2 weeks.
Everyone loses someone they care about. The real test of character is what you do once they’re gone. My mentors have always helped me navigate through life but my manager insists that I need to have a constant mentor to talk to who can resonate with my drive, passion, ambition & goal. Sadly, finding someone like that isn’t easy.
Below is my first attempt at a Video Log of the race.