Let the shadows fall behind you

Five weeks till my marathon in Delaware.  This weekend will be my first long run with snow and ice in pockets of my town so I will have to get creative with my training.  Training has been going well, I have only missed two of my cross training days and making sure to hit all my mileage marks.  Marathon training is really crazy, you basically have to just give your self over to the race for the last five weeks and then you get to resurface on race day.

As I was doing my five miles this morning on my treadmill listening to the Justin Beiber station on my kindle...the song "Towards the Sun" from Home came on, Rihanna sings it.  Her voice is rather haunting  and the lyrics for whatever reason were really getting me today.

"Turn your face towards the sun

Let the shadows fall behind you

Don't look back, just carry on

And the shadows will never find you"

Many people feel like when you start running, you are doing this to run from something.  Running my second marathon over two years ago and not even thinking a Boston Qualifying (BQ) time was a possibility and then to come up 13 seconds short was mind blowing.  I never even thought that was something I would be interested in wanting, something that was so far off my radar as a mom of four kids that stayed home and felt like she just did laundry all day.  But I did it.  I didn't train for a BQ time but I got pretty darn close to it.  So I signed up again  for 2016 and told myself I would train harder and would be faster and able to make that magic happen...chase my unicorn that is the Boston Marathon.  Well 2 minutes and 40 seconds too much on a horribly cold and windy day with a pulled calf at mile 15 left me with yeah another time that was not BQ.

So I can sit here and be sad and keep myself down.  I could of stopped running all together because I gave what I thought was my all and didn't make the cut.  I could have let that new passion that was now burning deep within me fizzle out and try to find something else to fill that void.  I could have kept running and just gone through the motions and not tried for harder, faster, stronger.

This Orange Visor journey of mine started out about a girl that was unhappy and overweight and inactive.  Then that girl became a running machine with bigger dreams and became part of a community that had like minded people.  People with goals, no matter how big or small.  People that had a passion within them for whatever reason.  People that smiled and were excited when they talked about their races, their hopes for the next season of running, and wanted to share their store, their misfortune, their successes.  People that didn't think I was crazy for tearing up over their stories because I had been there, or am there, and understand that daily struggle.  This girl that started out as one thing has turned into another.  I hope every day that my sharing will give one person the courage to do something for themselves.  We all have something to share, something to be passionate about we just have to let ourselves figure that out....and with that comes failing a few times even before we succeed.

So we can keep our face towards the sun and let the shadows fall behind us.  Keep pushing ourselves to uncover the good in ourselves as well as the good in others. We can let the past stay in our past and use those lessons to encourage us to keep pushing forward.  Looking back at what was, or what could have been is pointless...we can only control what is right in front of us.  This new Orange Visor girl is about just that...choosing me, bringing a little more kindness into the world, letting others know they are not alone, showing others that hard is possible, being that example for my family, getting stronger every day, and forgetting about the shadows...and being okay with how race day unfolds in just five weeks...everything is a lesson in one way or another.

Embrace the suck...choose you...turn that face!!