Shades of Week One

The nerves are all tingling in unison as I have prepared for Sunday’s Komen Race for the Cure 5K.  I’m an anxious, self-stressed, cortisol producing mess, and it feels like I’m starting the training journey all over again.  Like early on, my weight has been hovering around 297 pounds.  But unlike the beginning of the year I've been faithful to my diet, eating only my Mindy-approved plan.  I am consistently at or under my daily calorie goal, and have sweat soak my clothes every time I finish at the Club.

In Laurie’s group Wednesday night I started feeling the tell tale lack of energy that preceded the faintness I felt in my very first weeks of training.  It’d been so long since I felt that way that I stopped bringing the piece of fruit, which served as an emergency energy, months ago.  All culminated yesterday, when I was playing tennis with my friends, Joseph and the sweetly sprite-like Amanda Mills.  I am as nervous in learning tennis as I am in everything else, and they noticed that my footwork was little anxious steps, my swings over thought, halting motions.  The clarifying moment occurred as a ball was sent projecting behind me, near the baseline.  Caught off guard, my over-stimulated brain chose the rarely used tennis move consisting of a sideways, backwards jump, a feckless flailing at the ball, followed by a landing without the assistance of one’s feet.  It happened to fast and without thought; one moment upright, the next painfully hugging the court with my left shoulder and wrist.

When everyone is too polite to ridicule me, it is I who must say that this is ridiculous.  I’ve put forth the effort that has prepared me for Sunday—I am ready.  My goal is to beat my 5K personal record of 46:08 from May’s Flying Pig, and I know that I beat that time by about seven minutes at The Color Run.  As Mindy told me, I just need to just let life’s challenges come at me, rather than contorting my mind in attempts to anticipate every possibility.  If anxiety is a sort of electricity that flows freely within my body, I need to find a way to ground the livewire that so stresses my flesh and wits.  Mindy has recommended guided meditation and has led me to some great apps.  I think it’s starting to take the edge off, and know it’s healthier than Xanax or alcohol.  Tonight and tomorrow I rest my legs, my shoulder and wrist.  Sunday, we have a Race!