abandonedbandit

[abandonedbandit]

Comatose.

They say that the worse thing you can do when in critical condition is close your eyes.  I’ve been in a coma for the last several months. Prior to that, I fought hard to regain my strength and stamina following a medical event that would knock me flat on my ass in every aspect of my life. I know better than to think I’m invincible, so I don’t. But while running on a treadmill in April 2019, at a steady pace of 9′30″/ mile, my nose began to bleed and I woke up to a very worried gym bro telling me I’d just had a seizure and fell on the treadmill. While the aforementioned coma is just an analogy for cradling in death’s embrace when there is not enough energy to live, the aneurysm that preceded it is very real.  Down for the count. I was told I’d probably never run again -- at least not for a very long time. As one would expect, I felt hopeless, helpless, and like a total failure. I was ashamed and embarrassed and did anything I could to avoid having to explain what happened to me, and why I wasn’t running anymore, to my friends and colleagues, going so far as to delete all of my social media. Even Instagram. Running was the one thing I had, the only thing that I was good at and proud of accomplishing. I had a decent following of around 5,000 followers on IG, mostly runners in the Nike community, but also global runners, as well. Posting about running made me feel like I was making a positive contribution to other people’s lives, but lacing up and going out for a run gave me something consistent to look forward to every single day.  What I hadn’t realized was that, while I was preoccupied with my love for the sport and its community, my life was actually falling apart beneath the surface.  Learning that the likelihood of racing again was pretty much zeroed out forced me to come to terms with what I had left outside of running: a neglected circle of friends, a six-year relationship plummeting into resentment, a day job that was slipping through my unmotivated grasp, and absolutely no hope for the future at all. Depression crept in as I realized that I had nothing and nobody, and it was all my fault.  Life Support. During summer, my life changed radically (thanks to eclipse season). I accepted a job transfer to San Francisco, left my relationship and broke more hearts in doing so than I ever could have imagined, and tried my best to get a fresh start in a new city with new people. I transferred my credits to a new school, found a place to live thanks to an incredibly important person (that I’m so insanely lucky to have), and learned the dos and don’ts of being a human/friend/employee/female in San Francisco. Spoiler alert: it’s an asston harder than it looks. Sleep Paralysis. With so much commotion and so many different areas of my life pulling me in opposite directions, I could not keep a clear line of communication between my head and heart, nor between my head and real life. My thoughts all blurred into one big run-on rant, rudely interrupted by other thoughts, and I ultimately had no time or space to myself in order to sort out all the messy, deceptively destructive thoughts in my head. Every time I’d make progress untangling it all, something else would happen that would set me back by weeks. My job demanded more from me than I could provide, and in the process of trying to meet those demands, I was placed on academic suspension in my first quarter at the new school. I had very little time to meet people in hopes of making friends and resorted to empty exchanges with coworkers (who would happily throw me to the wolves in a flash) because at least it was some sort of human interaction. I gained nearly 20 lbs in 6 months, had a diet that only a raccoon could envy, and would go months without any physical exertion. I literally could not see the positives in front of me at all because that’s how enormous the deficit in energy and self-worth was. I closed my eyes. The pressure was far too high. I was underwater, drowning. The harder I fought, the deeper I sank and the further I was from any chance of living. You’re always supposed to save just a little energy for the end. I forgot about that part until it was too late. I let myself slip away completely and came to terms with the death of who I was. 

[abandonedbandit]

End me.

I ran too fast downhill and tore my IT band. Physical therapy for 12 weeks.

I literally do not even know why I try.

[abandonedbandit]

Rebirth.

is this crowning?

Gross. I know. Probably could have chosen a better term, but whatever. Something happened to me when I accepted responsibility for my own bullshit; I swear it felt like labor, everything went black. Felt like I’d been knocked out from shock, but could still feel everything. This discomfort forced me to choose between giving up on running forever or diving head first into the sport and giving it more than I’ve ever given before. I chose the latter because something about the challenge gave me a sense of direction, which I was hoping would lead me to a sense of purpose.

is this breathing?

My first time running again was beyond disappointing. I set my expectations super low, with a running plan of 20 minutes: 5 minute light jog, 3 minute slow run, 2 minute moderate run, repeat. What happened was more like: 3 minute light jog, 2 minutes hard run, 5 minutes walking, 2 minutes hard run, walking until I just quit.

Here’s the thing: I often expect far too much of myself and create extremely unrealistic expectations and goals, then when I’m in the process of forcing myself to reach them, I realize how wild they are and I quit cold-turkey.

Here’s an even more important thing: sometimes I think they’re outlandish expectations when they’re extremely feasible and attainable, and it seems to be an excuse to fail forgiveably.

I had been maintaining my fitness level to at least an 80% capacity through cross-training. There was no reason whatsoever for me to not be able to stick to my VERY mild 20-minute intro plan. I failed because I was not mentally fit for the task. I needed to remind myself that it was more about effort than speed. It’s more about breathing than pushing. It’s more about myself than everyone else.

is this learning?

I kept pushing myself through these “intro” runs until I was able to run straight through 20 minutes without stopping for stupid reasons. My pace was slow and somewhat insulting, but hey, I was coming out of LTIR and it was perfectly forgiveable, right? (Wrong. Hint: Excuses are usually wrong.) I decided to register for a small local 5k that was giving away a pretty decent prize to the top 3 runners in both gender divisions. Of course this was important to me: I assumed I could easily place with six weeks of training.

Naturally, I assumed incorrectly. Six weeks wasn’t anywhere near enough training time to compensate for a year of downtime, and I placed 27th out of 300 in the race with a time of 28:35. I wasn’t too shaken by this, surprisingly, since I had endured a cold during my birthday just two weeks prior (more excuses? Probably).

After the 5k, I decided to register for a 10k taking place just five weeks later. Following that, a 15k four weeks later. The 10k consisted of me vomiting around mile 4 due to nerves, and the 15k was filled with bullshit; everything from my chip timer falling out of my shoelaces, to having to pee from overhydration, and then my hip flaring up unexpectedly. Trust me, if anyone knows bad race luck, it’s me.

I decided to keep pushing and even volunteered myself to do “30 Races Before 30”, and even made it all the way to 11 races. Not one of them produced a top placing result for yours truly. All of them pretty much ended the same way, with me falling back because I lost the lead position. Shameful.

is this puberty?

Once I finally got tired of throwing money away on fruitless races and excuses for not doing better, I decided to go back to basics. Why was I running? What was my goal? Where did I go wrong? Can I start over?

I was running because it gave me something to look forward to, and I needed to be good at just one thing in life, since there was nothing else. My goal was to someday qualify for, and participate in, the Boston marathon, which is incredibly difficult to do. I went wrong by lacking structure and trying to just scramble through races by quantity instead of quality. Finally, I could absolutely start over. I just needed to humble myself enough to admit that I needed to start over.

is this rebellion?

June 6, 2018. Global Running Day. 24 hours of running. Let’s gooooo. I do the thing and my boo did it with me, even though he hated running with a passion. He doesn’t know this, but his willpower inspired me to get my shit together. We had a blast together and then registered for a 5k that evening. We’d have 10 weeks to train, and we received a training plan to go with it. We stuck to it like religion and he saw intense results very quickly. I kept telling myself that I did too, because that’s what my pace times were telling me. But no matter what I tried, or how hard I tried, I could never quite reach my concrete goal times when it counted. Why was I fighting myself so fucking hard? 

[abandonedbandit]

LTIR

Long-Term Injured Reserve Ingesting Ramen

Them

Long-Term Injured Reserve is a term that most sports fanatics are aware of. For those who may not know, it means that an athlete has sustained an injury that will not allow them to perform for at least one full season or longer. It’s not unusual to hear that an athlete will retire shortly after their LTIR season has ended, whether due to the injury itself or due to having "LTIR” branded on their forehead and losing their support base, fans, and endorsements as a result of their new reputation for frailty. Understandably, it’s usually the sort of thing that most physical competitors fear.

The Doctor

In an attempt to make light of how shitty I felt, I like to joke that my injury placed me on LTIR. It’s not much of a stretch. Shortly after the half marathon accident, my doctor would tell me that I’ve sustained a serious hip flexor injury (which was wrong, but we’ll cross that bridge when the floodgates open). She advised me to stop running entirely, for at least 6-12 months and told me to stay off of my legs and let my body heal completely before returning to any activity that might worsen my condition.

What the hell does that even mean? Don’t work out? Well, I could do most yoga and floor pilates, but if you’re a runner, then you probably know that both options suck BIGLY. So I tried to run again because I’m a rebel, baby. And I’m also stupid but think I’m smarter than a doctor, apparently.

It took less than two attempts to run to make matters MUCH worse. This time, it was so bad that I’d occasionally go numb in my left leg, injury side, and I ultimately threw in the towel and accepted my fate as a very sad couch potato. Every now and then, I’d show my face to the Bikram Yoga class that I had hastily abandoned, but it wasn’t the same. I was 27, already aged out of most competitive sports, and without anything to compete for, my life was meaningless.

Me

With nothing to fill the empty hole where fulfillment and purpose once lived, I mentally moved into the dark void left behind by the limitations of The Injury. In that dark void, I spent a lot of time sulking, feeling sorry, and blaming my bad luck for everything that had happened leading up to that day. I was dramatic AF, but like, that’s what it took for me to realize that I was in complete control, and accept responsibility for my predicament. Once I finally accepted it I was able to spot a sequence that I adopted as almost a new identity -- and Nike stamped it in gold on a fancy sports bra for me.

Stay tuned...

[abandonedbandit]

Let’s get started. 

It’s easy, you just put one foot in front of the other.

This isn’t a blog for the winners, this is a blog for the people who come in second place; you know, the person who helps the winner actually win, but then goes home without the medal or the money or the Instagram stories with neon cursive fonts vaguely stating “#1″. 

This is about my experience as someone who had always firmly held on to the discouraging statements that my high school PhysEd teacher violently screamed at me during our Wednesday Mile Test. “If you’re not first, you’re last,” and, “Control your breathing, you sound like an obese diabetic who smokes a pack a day,” or my personal favourite, “You call yourself an athlete?” But nothing will compare to what my volleyball coach told my mother after I took a speeding 9 oz Molten to the face during a tournament, “She’s got the physique, she’s got the stamina, she’s got the energy and will to perform well, but she simply doesn’t have the athletic ability to win.” The same coach ultimately dropped me from the team in favour of someone with wrists of steel who could spike even the fastest of volleyballs without ever having to worry about accidentally spiking the ball with her face. Here’s what I took from the event: You’re not good enough, you’re hopeless, you should stop trying. More importantly, I learned that in sports, there is no room for accidents. 

Accidents do not happen. 

I believe this now, more than ever. Injuries happen, illness happens, exhaustion happens, but accidents don’t exist in the world of athletics. If your wrist slipped while trying to sucker punch a volleyball and, as a result, the ball made your nose bleed, that’s not an accident, it’s simply poor form mixed with poor decision-making. I suffered the consequences of my carelessness and, 13 years later, I finally accept responsibility for the end of my volleyball career. 

It took suffering from a running injury, that laid me out flat for over a year, to teach me this lesson, and it was during this downtime that I realized I’d bamboozled myself again:

Registered for a half marathon just weeks after completing my first half marathon, which I was not fully trained for. Strike One. 

Running in the rain, up and down hills of uneven asphalt, slipped and fell on an oil spot while running downhill because I was more focused on taking advantage of downhill speed than taking caution. Strike Two. 

Finished the last 9 miles bloodied, bruised, and swollen with tremendous pulsing pain from my left hip down to my left ankle, requiring a wheelchair and medical attention at the finish line. Strike Three. 

Three strikes, I was out.

tbc...

[abandonedbandit]

Enter.

Stay tuned.

But for now, enjoy this website generated Black Metal song about, well, me...

“Faster than Shalane Flanagan

Terrifying villain

Enraged and like a demon

She's half woman and half Usain Bolt

Mistress of running I'm pulling your muscles

Twisting your ankle and smashing your toes

A sadistic health goblin nestled somewhere in time

A terrifying runner - no warnings, no signs

Judgment day and the Boston Marathon arrives

Eventually, all marathon participants cry

The pavement went SMACK, there was no use turning back

'Cause I just had to see, was a villain watching me?

In the mist the ankle twists

Was all this swell, or just some kind of hell?”

- “Mistress of Running”

By Running Psychosis

(A black metal anthem)