Monday 2 February 2009

Grumpy Gus...

Yup, today was not the best day. Little Miss Sunshine turned into Grumpy Gus. It started out when I woke up. I tried to shake it off in the pool, but did nothing but spray water everywhere.

The swim started out fine enough. I did a 300 m swim warmup, then started in on the drills. 600 m of sets of sculling. Not really the best thing to do when one gets up on the wrong side of the bed. I skipped the last 200 m of drills and added that to a swim set. Then I tried to get into my speed intervals.

I used my grumpiness to fuel the drills, and it worked for a while. Unfortunately I couldn't dig deep enough to finish the sets. At least I managed to get in an hour of swimming, that had to count for something right?

The grumpiness followed me home. It was there that I realized I was more sad then grumpy. Or rather I was grumpy because I was sad. Seriously, I have nothing to be sad about, or grumpy about for that matter. I love my life. I am grateful everyday for everything I have: my work, my friends and family who love and care about me, a nice home to live in, my furry feline Mr. Cringely, I am in good health and I'm surrounded by beauty. Could you ask for more??

Today though, I got caught up in the future. You see, I have a friend who has cancer. It's one of those cancers where they give you an end date. She's been valiant about fighting it and continues to do so. The thing is, things aren't looking as bright as they may have a few months ago. Which really really sucks - to put it very mildly.

I let that thought get to me and thats when I made the slip of not staying in the present moment, but rather projecting into the future with a bunch of 'what if's'. This made me very sad. When I realized what I was doing I got really ticked off. Afterall, I am the one continually reminding myself and my friends to 'stay in the present' or 'be in the now'.

One of the things I like to do when I'm ticked is to hit and kick the snot out of a punching bag. Problem was, I don't have one at home and I no longer belong to the gym that had one. So I did the next best thing...

I ran.

It was a gorgeous day out but for the wind that was blowing at mach 10. I started my run at a normal pace. Then the wind started to tick me off. So I ran a bit harder. It likely helped that I had the punk tunes blasting on my mp3 player. As the negative future thoughts infultrated my mind I started running even harder. At points I was having troubles breathing as I was also fighting off some tears. That just made me run even harder. I kept thinking to myself, 'Come on Suse, it's time to HTFU!'

I only had the second half of the bonus hill to run up to finish my run as I had deeked into neighborhood at the halfway mark. As I started to run up the hill I could feel the wind pushing me back. This is when I let it all go. To me the wind symbolized my grumpiness, sadness, cancer and everything that was icky in the world. So I pushed back.

I looked up towards the top of the hill and I ran as hard as I could. I kept thinking to myself 'be strong!'. My lungs were burning, as was the the hot curry soup I had for lunch that was apparantly still in my stomach. I started telling the wind where it could go...along with my friends cancer.

By the time I reached the top of the hill I was gasping for air and was positive the curry was going to make an appearance. Thankfully it stayed down. I felt a bit better though. I was also thankful I didn't have a long run today because there was no way I could keep up the 'angry pace'.

I just thought of another thing I'm grateful for - the ability to run. Without it I'd have to figure out another way to blow off some steam and work through some thoughts. This one is easy though, I just put on my sneakers, run down to the bottom of the hill and sprint back up it till I feel like I'm going to chunder. Easy.

Peace out my friends and don't forget to stay in the now!

3 comments:

  1. Chin up buttercup:) Sorry to Hear your friend is not doing as well as she was. We all goes thru ups and downs and yes, be thankful for the ability to run - my drug of choice. I definately hear you on running to tears - and on days like that - you just have to do the best you can and know being out there made it better than it could have been.

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  2. Good thing that anger and frustration and grumpyness don't have an MSDS sheet, or they'd be getting after you for unauthorized dumping, and calling out the hasmat trucks along your run route.

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  3. Beautifully written post Susi. Thank you for sharing. It's easy to get caught up in the future or past, I like your "be in the presence" reminder.

    I'm sorry to hear about your friend not doing as weel as she has been doing. Cancer sucks. It sucks! But I bet her days are <>this much better and sun-shinier having a good friend in her life like you.

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