Diamonds are forever
They won’t leave in the night
I’ve no fear that they might
Desert me

Hello! I just finished my last run to total 60 miles in the month of November, it was the hardest of the runs, and I figured I’d write this recap in two parts. Part 1 will be how I feel right now, Part 2 will be in this same passage, down the bottom, and it’ll be how I feel later after I’ve had time to process and recover a bit.

Part I:

That last run was awful, the pace was bad, I ran too fast to start and fucked myself for the second half of the run. I wanted to quit so much, my body hurt, my spirit was broken, no motivation to keep going, I wanted to give up on everything. I was anxious, uncomfortable, exhausted, disappointed. That last 2.9 miles put me in the darkest place I’ve been in all month. It caused the passive suicidal ideation to creep in, it made me feel like a loser, like I should give up because I’m never going to make it anyways. As I sit here writing this, those feelings still exist, I’m upset, and I feel like I let myself down. I gave up on myself, I didn’t work hard enough early on in this challenge and I’m paying for it as we speak. What a terrible fucking time.

Part II:

It’s only been a couple hours since I wrote part one, I just took my dog niece for a walk and it gave me 15 minutes in the somewhat bitter cold(I was still wearing sweaty running gear and that wind hurt) to reflect on this whole 60 mile challenge. I grew as a person this month, in ways I didn’t expect running to help me grow. Not only did I grow physically, but mentally, maybe even more so. Physically before this month I had run a total of 12 miles in my life. Before this month I hadn’t run in 3 weeks, and my longest run was 1 mile. November 1st I ran 2 miles, it wasn’t easy and I worried that I wasn’t up for the challenge of doing it for 30 days. Yesterday, just 26 days after my first run, I ran 5 miles, it felt great, and it was a breeze. Mentally, I have an easier time facing adversity, I have an easier time facing my panic attacks when they arise, I have an easier time with my baseline anxiety. I have an easier time sitting in the cold water daily. I feel good physically, and I’m beginning to find my pace mentally. I feel like this challenge has made me kinder, more compassionate, more empathetic, more sure of myself, more confident, more sure of the type of people I do and don’t want in my life. It made me want to support anyone trying to better themselves in any way I can. It made me want to stop isolating, and build connections with the kind and beautiful people that have supported me during it. All this to say, I feel grateful, sore, but grateful. I’ve been looking for recommendations for topics for poetry Sundays, I have gotten a couple. This coming sunday will be the topic of gratitude, it seems fitting to do so now. I have a long way to go, and I know it’s not going to be easy, but doing this challenge did show me, it might just be worth it.

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.

PS if you have ideas for poetry topics, shoot me a message!