Doubt
I just realised I didn’t write anything in over two months. Now, if you’ve been following along for a while that’s not that surprising as I have quite a track record of not publishing anything for months on end. But this time is different.
You see, I’ve actually been painfully aware of not writing anything for weeks on end. The only realisation just now was that it has been two whole months. And don’t come at me with things like a writer’s block cause I’ve known perfectly well what I wanted to write. As Steven Pressfield said it in the War of Art:
"Resistance is not a perepheral opponent. Resistance rises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. Fear is the enemy within." - The War of Art, Steven Pressfield
It's about time.
It all started a couple months back on one of my long runs. I had come back from a one week ski-trip the week before and had therefore not trained that week. This was all according to plan and was part of my schedule. Just repeat the training week before my vacation and start building from there. My shorter runs that week went fine, but within three kilometres into my long run - I felt exhausted. I was slow, my heart was racing and my head was full of excuses as to why I could just turn back and quit. I had 23 kilometers to cover that day, which is a lot mind you. But I’m training for a marathon for god’s sake. How was I ever going to run the full 42.195 meters if I couldn’t manage to run even just over half that distance? I kept going and I kept on feeling sorry for myself, eventually finishing the thing.
That’s the moment the doubt started to creep in.
Even though I knew it was perfectly normal this training was feeling hard after a week without training, maybe having a beer or two, and maybe catching a bit of a cold, it shattered my confidence more than I’m comfortable admitting. I kept going, really started putting my head down and doing the work that was needed. I started eating healthy again, stopped drinking alcohol, and kept putting in the runs. I slowly started to feel better about myself again and about my chances of doing this thing. But I couldn’t write about it. Not yet. My full focus was on getting the kilometers in and I still felt like no one was interested in what I had to say. It’s only now that I feel strong enough to not even tell myself that people are interested (cause let’s be fair, I’m not exactly Charles Dickens), but to be okay with that I write for me.
The marathon I’m going to run is in 1 week’s time at the moment of writing. Since the start of my training in November I’ve run almost 750 kilometres. My last long run was an absolute disaster as I got cocky, but at least I know now. The last couple weeks I’ve been mostly resting, but I feel my inner stress level is on the rise. There’ll be nerves the coming days, but deep inside I know. I know I can do this.