The homework that comes with writing about this post-partum marathon training journey is having to reflect on my weekly efforts and feelings as the GR Marathon gets closer. No matter how dynamic my miles and confidence levels are week by week, the one constant is a repeated chant of, “I’m not ready.”
Whether I put a positive spin on that terrible mantra by adding “yet” at the end or I drown it with stats from my former jogging achievements, the feeling that I’m not ready is strong enough to be a fact for me.
But I realized something:
I wasn’t “ready” for any of my greatest achievements that were preceded by doubt-inducing challenges. I’m never confidently ready. In fact, I was more confidently ready for a college exam on cloud types in 2009 than I’ve ever been before a race, before childbirth, before a first day at a new job, and before writing a blog entry. Ironically, I bombed that cloud test and did fairly well on the other things.
What this realization did was remind me of all the things I’ve done with a “I know I can’t do it, but I’m going to do it anyway” attitude. Some people are admirably amazing at removing the word “can’t” from their vocabulary, and thrive by doing so. And then there are others who thrive by proving their doubtful selves wrong by doing something, even when their inner voice is telling them they can’t (my inner voice is named Kri, and she sucks).
The signal that I’m ready to run this marathon isn’t going to be the absence of me not feeling ready. I’ve done enough of these jogs to know that feeling will be with me right up to the starting line, however, it begins to disappear with each step toward the finish line. Thinking about it, I wasn’t ready to give birth either—I had called the nurse in just to get a boost of my epidural, which I was enjoying way more than the prospect of finally meeting this mass that had grown inside my tummy over the last 40 weeks (AND TWO DAYS OF HELL). But then they said it was time to start pushing and no one really cared whether or not I was ready, least of all me.
Yes, there was doubt, blood, tears, soooo much sweat, Gatorade, and an overwhelming wish for it all to be over, but when I finally finished my first marathon in 2016, I could not believe what I had accomplished, despite not being ready. Childbirth went okay too.
For y’all that don’t feel ready, you might not be. But keep logging those miles and using your baby as a medicine ball during squat workouts (extra points if you’re bench pressing a teenager). As someone with a healthy baby approaching her first birthday—despite not being ready for motherhood at any point in my life—I can tell you that you’ll do more amazing than you ever allow yourself to think.
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