Ultra Ramblings on not giving up

"You see those tiny switch back way in the back ? " Robert asked me. "no" I replied feeling really grateful I did not have my glasses with me and grateful we stopped for a second so I could catch my breath. This whole training thing is not easy and some runs just hurt more than others.   This week we ran on a Thursday and I heard it would be a  hard up hill and an awesome fast down hill. You may thing I was excited for the fast down hill but that is what scares me the most. The up hills are hard but I am in control . The down hills if I ran them correctly would mean I would have to let go and in my mind probably fall and this is why  I needed to show up. If it scares me I need to practice.
The whole up hill run was great except I felt like my calves where on fire. I was singing Kings of Leon on my way up. Except my lyrics where. My calves are on fire over and over. After a while it went away and I felt good. Feeling good does not mean I was not struggling it means I was not hurting at all. 

I definitely feel all excited and giddy inside when I run . I feel like its a big event. I know it is a training run but I still feel like ," Hello G  how grateful are you ? to be here in the mountains getting your butt kicked with your friends," that was my brain. I feel incredible. I feel like I do when I take my kids to the mountains or a park. When my family goes out to really fun dinner and everyone is happy. I feel like Man this is special or when I get to go to a play. I feel so incredibly grateful for this day.

The view was amazing and this was the point where I thought OK its 7 miles up and then they told us oh no we still have a little bit to go..( my brain was yelling but you said 7 ) but i acted totally cool . On the way back Robert told me to lean forward into my run. I tried this and my down hill improved some. I keep telling myself I have to believe it for it to happen. So I keep envisioning myself crossing that finish line.
Here is what I learned if your scared to try something ..anything because your fear is failure . My advise is to take a deep breath show up and try. If you fail try again and use that failure to fuel your drive. It is such a great feeling to check something off that little gremlin in our head that tells us we can't. The truth is we can if we keep trying keep learning and keep showing up. We can do amazing things. Sometimes if your like me the only way to believe it is to conquer it. 

It started getting dark so we finished up as fast as we could.
 So until next time challenging run. You might win but I will be dammed if I don't show up.