Heft Mode

I got the nickname "Beath" because of a typo. Beth + Beast = Beath. A few weeks ago, autocorrect gave me another nickname, "Heft". It's funny because it's true. 2014 has been hard on me. Beath Mode made a few feeble attempts, but "Heft Mode", well, that's been on in full force.

This post is not meant to be a pity party or self-deprecation fest. I'll give the same disclaimer I give before any blog post, which is that I like to look back on my progress and remember where I was, how I got there, how I felt that day, etc. I write this because I don't want to forget Heft Mode.

That last running race I did was in June of this year. I did triathlons and some swim races between then and now, but those aren't the same. I used to run all the time. People used to make fun of me because I couldn't go a weekend without a race. I remember reading Facebook posts early on a Sunday morning by friends getting ready for a local 5K, and commenting, "Good idea! See you there!". Sure, maybe it said something about my mental health that I wasn't able to cope with unstructured downtime, but at least it lent itself to my physical health. I can assure you that my decline in physical health has not improved my mental health. Yep, fat & crazy here, coming to you live!

So what went wrong? <This is where I picture that cool cinematography trick where current day rewinds back to the moment where everything went to hell.> Except, well, I don't have a defining moment. Somewhere after Timberman 70.3 (August 2013), things just started to pile up and everything became overwhelming. Training got hard and unsatisfying. I suffered through Goofy Challenge training. I had horribly slow times for the half and the full, which I justified by saying that it was a novelty race and that the time didn't matter. Boston training was even worse. I skipped most team runs, and dropped out of the two big on-course runs. My heart wasn't in it. I hung in there by the tiniest of threads because I knew I'd regret it if I hadn't gone to reclaim the finish line in 2014. I wanted to take a break after Boston, but I didn't want to give up on the goals I had already set. I had two more half marathons to run, and a couple of triathlons to complete. I slogged through all of those. Yes, there were some fun moments, but the overall feeling was that I didn't belong out there anymore. I took a break from running in September, resisting the one or two urges I got to run, just so I could say I had a zero-mileage month.

Sometimes I think that I let myself get back to square one because I didn't get it right the first time through. I look back on my accomplishments and I impress myself. Except at the time, I was never satisfied. My race pictures were always too fat, my times were too slow, my food wasn't healthy enough. And I want to be clear on what I got wrong -- it wasn't my size, my pace, or my eating habits -- it was the self-imposed judgement on all of those things.  I let external judgement influence my own self-judgement. I want to do it all again, and I want to be proud of every step I take, every embarrassing race photo, and I want to praise the imperfect body that got me to that place. If your all-organic diet works for you, or if you swear by your Beachbody lifestyle with your Shakeology obsession, or if you weigh yourself before and after every workout because science is going to help you become a better athlete -- I applaud you, and I support you, but I will not join you. You know what I miss most about running? It was an open channel to my higher power. I've been having trouble making that connection lately, and the volume on these other "solutions" is suddenly much louder than it was before. Those solutions aren't for me. I am Independent Goat, the hefty & happy one.