On World Mental Health Day, 10/10/2021 I ran the Chicago Marathon.
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My running training started suffering back in August due to someone hitting my car and the subsequent cost forcing me to miss my first race of the summer and then work not allowing me time off to attend my favorite event (for the 4th time) and my own new diagnoses of depression, anxiety, and ADHD dog piling me. My workouts became very irregular (like maybe two a week at best) and it was hard to get out of bed most days.
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I’ve ran maybe a handful of times since August, nothing longer than 7-8 miles, usually much shorter. Instead I managed to do some SP, some Peloton tread classes, and some Olympic weightlifting as my wrecked mental health would allow.
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Yesterday I ran with my heart. As they say ‘the hay was in the barn’ aka the training is there…..well the hay was literally freaking everywhere. I had several gutcheck/triaging moments throughout the race….but I did it. And while I barely made the cut off (6:26:57 on a cut off of 6:30:00 to be an official finisher with your name in the paper) it’s a PR for me because usually I hit 26.2 and keep going to 31-33 miles.
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Life isn’t perfect or ideal, but I’m proud I went out and didn’t just skip it. Sometimes we have to ‘meet life’ where we are and be proud of ourselves even when the situation or outcome isn’t what we hoped for. You can do the hard things and beautiful circumstances can occur even when things aren’t the way we imagined.
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