...all hope is gone

Earlier today I wrote about the race I ran yesterday. I touched on how I mentally fell apart at one point, but I didn't talk about how I managed to come out of that downward spiral.

When I have one of those hard moments during a run, I try to remind myself that it will pass.  Like life, bad times don't last forever and will pass.  Sometimes even knowing this doesn't help.  The feelings of hopelessness overtake your thoughts, and you start to feel like you're sinking into a hole.

It's all a head game.  If you're strong enough mentally you can rebound back, if you're weak you'll be eaten alive.

I like a lot of different music.  Some of you might have noticed that I've used song titles for the titles of my blog posts.  I love everything from heavy metal, to rap, to folk, to classical music.

When I go to that "dark place" or just have a rough spot I repeat a part of a chorus from a Slipknot song to myself.  Over and over again I'll repeat to myself, "We'll find a way, When all hope is gone."

I like this lyric because it reminds me to keep fighting, to keep moving forward, to find that small bit of hope when you're feeling like you have nothing left.

It's important to me to acknowledge these moments and to try to deal with them.  I've personally noticed that when my training has been "soft" my mental toughness isn't as strong.  My training for this 100k honestly wasn't what it should have been, and deep down I knew it.  I didn't do any difficult workouts. There were no long hill repeat workouts, no hard bike rides, and no difficult weight routines.

I'm not saying I wasn't able to workout, it just wasn't at the intensity that I needed it to be.

...once I got out of my funk I kept repeating my song lyric over and over again for about 23 miles.  I repeated it up and down every hill, until I reached the finish line.  It was the one thing that gave me hope when I though I had lost it.

Until next time...

KEEP RUNNING!!!!